Kylie Jenner faked her way to billionaire status, Forbes says
By Lia Eustachewich and Emily Smith - Page Six
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Kylie Jenner has been stripped of her title of youngest self-made billionaire.
The 22-year-old is accused in a scathing new Forbes report of lying about her wealth and forging tax returns in order to inflate her net worth.
Last year, the business magazine named Jenner, then 21, the youngest-ever self-made billionaire after she sold her makeup line, Kylie Cosmetics, for $600 million in a deal valued at $1.2 billion.
But Forbes said in its report out Friday it “now thinks that Kylie Jenner, even after pocketing an estimated $340 million after tax from the sale, is not a billionaire.”
The publication analyzed six months of filings from Coty, the publicly traded company that acquired a 51 percent stake in Jenner’s business in November, saying they showed that “Kylie’s business is significantly smaller, and less profitable, than the family has spent years leading the cosmetics industry and media outlets, including Forbes, to believe.”
The mag pointed to several accounting discrepancies: In 2018, the Jenners — led by momager Kris Jenner — claimed the popular makeup line made $360 million. But Coty divulged that number was actually closer to $125 million.
Jenner’s rep also claimed the young beauty mogul’s skincare line that launched in May 2019 made $100 million in its first month and a half. Filings, however, showed the line was set to close out the year with $25 million in sales.
Tax returns provided to Forbes by the Jenners purported that Kylie Cosmetics did $307 million in 2016 and $330 million in 2017.
The mag said it was likely the Jenners have lied about the success of Kylie Cosmetics every year since 2016 — fudging tax returns with the help of their accountant to “help juice Forbes’ estimates of Kylie’s earnings and net worth.”
“While we can’t prove that those documents were fake (though it’s likely), it’s clear that Kylie’s camp has been lying,” Forbes said.
Forbes also changed its previous calculations of Jenner’s profits, which it estimated at 44 percent net margins. It put that figure instead at 25 percent, according to Coty filings.
Jenner is now worth just under $900 million — which factors in the estimated $340 million she would have gotten from the Coty sale after taxes and the economic impact of the coronavirus, Forbes says.
A source close to the Kardashian-Jenner clan told The Post Jenner’s allegedly exaggerated success was the beauty industry’s worst-kept secret.
“This was a deliberate strategy to brand Kylie as a business mogul,” the source said. “They aggressively pitched Forbes to put Kylie on the cover as the world’s youngest billionaire, and Forbes fell for it.”
The source added, “Everybody in the beauty branding business knew Kylie’s net worth was inflated.”
Jenner had unseated Mark Zuckerberg as the youngest self-made billionaire ever, as part of Forbes’ annual list of the world’s richest people. The Facebook founder was 23 when he earned the title.
The Jenners didn’t comment to Forbes on the discrepancies.
Jenner’s rep didn’t immediately return multiple calls and emails from The Post.
