We have read the words Kylie Jenner and self-made billionaire being said together many times in the recent past but, is that really the case?
Forbes predicted last year that Kylie Jenner will become the youngest self-made billionaire, and last week Kylie was ranked in America’s 400 richest people list. However, not everyone has been a fan of the fact that Kylie’ success has been called self-made.
The Methodology
Various experts have raised questions at Forbes’ methodology and stated that the publication simply assumes a celebrity’s net worth only based upon the properties they own. Celebrity Net Worth, a website dedicated to fact-checking wealth claims made by celebrities, stated that Forbes assumed Kylie to be a billionaire based on the worth of her company Kylie Cosmetics.
According to Forbes, this cosmetic company is owned 100% by Kylie Jenner and has a net worth of $800 million, and Kylie also has a separate net worth of $100 million coming in from other sources. Hence, considering these numbers, the publication declared Kylie to be a billionaire assuming her total net worth as over $900 million.
Moreover, Brian Warner, the CEO of Celebrity Net Worth, revealed that Forbes uses a rather conservative formula to calculate its predictions. According to him, the publication simply multiplies the annual profits of a company by 8 to predict future sales. It is pertinent to note that Kylie Cosmetics is a private company hence its net worth cannot be easily determined due to non-disclosure of information.
The only way Forbes could’ve gotten a hold of these numbers is probably through Kylie’s manager, Kris Jenner. Many have said that this automatically brings down the credibility of the numbers upon which Forbes has based its rankings.
A History of Issues
Forbes has been dealing with some vetting issues regarding its billionaire list. Michael Cohen, a former employee of President Donald Trump, revealed that Forbes inflated his assets upon his request to keep him in the top section of the list.
Even Forbes did not shy away from revealing that the current Commerce Secretary of President Trump, Wilbur Ross, inflated his net worth by at least $2 million for several years. Dan Alexander, a Forbes reporter, released a statement that apparently Wilbur Ross had been lying to the magazine and that such exaggerations of wealth had been a common practice in Forbes since 2004.
A Faulty System?
We are not saying that Kylie Jenner may have done the same just to be ranked as a billionaire but, we can’t deny the possibility that Forbes might have a faulty calculation system. According to Warner, the majority of the times celebrities do not even know their own net worth as accurately as one would expect them to know.
Furthermore, another wealth expert, Tom Corley, stated that there is a 33% chance that Kylie Jenner’s valuation in terms of her wealth could be incorrect. Bloomberg, in its Billionaires Index, had declared Kylie Jenner’s current net worth at $1.02 billion and it seems like Forbes simply used that as a reference.
Forbes has defended its predictions regarding Kylie Jenner’s worth, stating that it has been the only authentic source for providing accurate rankings of the wealthiest people around the globe. The publication further agreed that its assessments are conservative but it had confirmed its findings of Kylie Jenner from various analysts and experts, so we have no option but to believe trust it.
