Kylie Jenner on whether she’s ‘self-made’: ‘None of my money is inherited’

2nd Monte-Carlo Gala for the global Ocean in Monaco.

Ew, this short blonde wig on Kylie Jenner is kind of awful. Controversial opinion: some women just shouldn’t do short hairstyles, it ages them. And not everyone should try blonde hair. That being said, this is just a wig, so whatever. Kylie covers the latest issue of Paper magazine, promoting herself and her cosmetics and that’s about it. Interestingly enough, Kylie does discuss two hot-button topics related to the conversations around her: whether she has a face full of plastic surgery and fillers, and whether she should really be considered a “self-made” billionaire. Some highlights:

On plastic surgery: “People think I fully went under the knife and completely reconstructed my face, which is completely false. I’m terrified! I would never. They don’t understand what good hair and makeup and, like, fillers, can really do.” I’m eager to indulge in the fantasy that anyone can look like Kylie Jenner if they just watch enough tutorials about crease application, and tell her as much. She gently interrupts. “I mean, no,” she says with a conspiratorial laugh. “It’s fillers. I’m not denying that.”

Young motherhood: “It’s genuinely what I wanted… to be a young mom. I thought, This I what I want to do, and if people accept it or don’t accept it then I’m okay with every outcome.”

Her relationship with Travis Scott: They aren’t married yet, or even engaged. Don’t expect her to keep something like that a secret. When it happens, and she seems certain it will soon, “I’ll let everybody know.”

She never did consumer research: Of the now-iconic lip kits that started it all, Jenner says she never did any consumer research, “wasn’t educated on what the beauty business really was,” and never even stopped to observe what the big brands were putting in drugstores. She simply “followed her heart” and invented the exact product she wanted to buy. “I just knew for myself as a customer, like, why am I buying a lip liner and a different lipstick? I wanted it the same color, I wanted it to be easy. And I really spent every last dime that I had starting it, not even knowing if it would be successful.”

Whether she’s really “self made”: She is able to acknowledge how certain Kardashian-related privileges gave Kylie Cosmetics an edge other fledgling beauty brands would kill for. “I had such a huge platform, I had so many followers already and I had so many people watching me,” she admits. Still, she’s eager to assert that “the self-made thing is true.” Her parents “cut her off at the age of 15” and told her to start making her own way, and Jenner says that since then she hasn’t received a single cent. “My parents told me I needed to make my own money, it’s time to learn how to save and spend your own money, stuff like that. What I’m trying to say is I did have a platform, but none of my money is inherited.”

[From Paper]

The concept of “inheritance” is a lot more than just cash, property, securities or loans. Inheritance is also about fame, your family name, everything that was handed to you on a platter just because you were born to certain people. While Kylie is likely telling the truth about some of it – namely, that she didn’t take money from her parents to start her business – she’s overlooking the extraordinary and unique privileges that came from having the name Kylie Jenner, from having a mom who understood business and works as her manager, from being on a reality show from a very young age, and on and on. I guess I don’t know why Kylie can’t acknowledge that?

As for her face full of fillers… I think it’s MOSTLY fillers. But yeah, she went under the knife too. Her face changed so dramatically, it’s more than just “lip injections and Botox.” Not to mention the plastic surgery on her body.

61st Annual GRAMMY Awards

Cover courtesy of Paper, additional photos courtesy of Avalon Red, WENN.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

60 Responses to “Kylie Jenner on whether she’s ‘self-made’: ‘None of my money is inherited’”

Comments are Closed

We close comments on older posts to fight comment spam.

  1. minx says:

    Well, she has the Kardashian lying gene, even if she’s a Jenner.

  2. CharliePenn says:

    But what is the price of your childhood being sold to the masses? That’s what I feel like happened to her. I feel so protective of her because she was such a SMALL CHILD when this family thrust their asses into the spotlight.
    To me it’s like the Olsen twins. So much money, but money can’t replace the sweet innocence of a private, healthy childhood. She’s been a commodity for her family since she was so little. She has had so many years in the spotlight and has never seemed to be unkind, she’s a sweet person.

  3. MS says:

    It’s so frustrating that she represents a person to idolize for the younger generation. A very warped version of Beauty in society. No wonder these kids are obsessed with selfies & filter everything natural they should be confident & proud of. She never really stood a chance in that money & fame obsessed family.

  4. Rando says:

    All of her opportunities are inherited. This is willful ignorance.

    • jwoolman says:

      Poor Kylie couldn’t run a lemonade stand on her own. She’s a figurehead. Her mom is the business whiz.

      Her parents didn’t exactly cut her off at 15. They were shuttling so much money to her in various ways that of course it made sense for her to pay her own expenses from that, if only for tax reasons. You had a big allowance, dear.

    • Raina says:

      Yep I know plenty of 20 year old single moms who are billionaires. It’s all the rage. I look at every teenager and call them a loser if they didn’t reach a billion bucks. What’s inheritance got to do with it….except fukking everything.

      Oh. She did mention she spent every last dime she had. Unfortunately, her idea of a dime is far different than mine.
      Look, do you, Ky, but cut the shyt.

    • Char says:

      Kim probably hates Kylie. She was the one who had to clean Paris Hilton’s closet and do a sex tape to get famous and Kylie is the one who got the face that all the other sisters went to the surgeon to get, she’s the one who’ s “cool” and she is the billionaire!

    • Jay (the Canadian one) says:

      Plus did she not get a salary from being on the show? It’s not just a platform, it was a source of income courtesy of her family.

      • Tiffany :) says:

        ^^This! She got thousands of dollars for being on the show, was handed an audience, and that’s not to mention the various sponsorships that came out of it. Didn’t she have a clothing like at Kohls or something with her sister when they were younger?

  5. me says:

    So we are supposed to believe her boobs and butt are real? Also, she’s saying after the age of 15 she got nothing from her parents. Her sweet sixteen was on TV, didn’t she get a really expensive car from her parents? She was also making money since the age of 11 from the reality show. A show the family only got because of Kim. So yeah Kylie we started way ahead of the pack and it wasn’t because you worked for it. Lastly, those lip kits are not original. She worked with a company that already had those lipliners and just put her name on them, same formula and everything !

    • leela says:

      “Lastly, those lip kits are not original. She worked with a company that already had those lipliners and just put her name on them, same formula and everything !” – yes!!!, a 10000x yes! she was basically a model. She was a good one because people saw her thin lips. She suddenly had these fuller lips and she said it was just because of these products. She only admitted to fillers late last year. I have a hard time believing that people bought their PR line – I feel like i’m taking crazy pills!

      • me says:

        It’s false advertising and I don’t understand how Kylie didn’t get in trouble for it. She FALSELY claimed her fuller lips were due to lip liner and only admitted the truth about her lip injections AFTER she made millions of dollars selling lip kits. How is this right?

  6. JByrdKU says:

    I don’t know if that’s she can’t acknowledge her privilege so much as she simply doesn’t see it. I’d imagine it’s difficult to see the benefits of who you were born to when you can’t even conceive of a privilege-less life. Maybe (just maybe) it’s that for someone of her young age and family background, she’s not capable of understanding the amazing platform she was given (born in to) that allowed her to launch her many businesses.

    Just a thought.

    • Wow says:

      Could be this, I am a black woman, but I grew up in upper middle class white environments. I couldn’t understand the majority of the black community until I left my bubble. She will likely never get out and learn. Class ignorance and classism is a huge often overlooked issue.

      • leela says:

        I read this on another site, ” . . . once heard someone say that being brought up in wealth and privilege is like cycling with the wind behind your back; you don’t really notice its presence and just assume you’re cycling well. It’s not until you have to face into the wind that you become fully aware of its effects and how much things are stacked against you.”

    • Veronica S. says:

      Probably a mixture of both. America peddles the lie that hard work will inevitable lead to great wealth. You can’t pretend otherwise when an entire system of socioeconomic oppression hinges on that illusion that poor people are poor by their own failures.

  7. Ronaldinhio says:

    She did acknowledge that being part of the Kardashian circus gave her a leg up so I don’t think it is fair to say that she is ignoring the leg up that that gave her.
    It is also fair to point out that many other famous kids make absolutely nothing. Even within her own family Rob and Kourtney have been hangers on to the brand and haven’t struck out on their own in the way that she, Khloe or Kym have. Kendall is strutting around looking sulky, how much she is earning or what kind of commercial empire that is…?

    Kudos for what she does, she has made a pretty small idea into a massive earner.

    • Katie says:

      I agree. She clearly admitted the leg up she has with the platform her family’s fame has provided her. She stated it twice. To want to clarify that all of her billions came from direct earnings is understandable.
      She seems the most successful out of the entire pack. And let’s not forget, before the makeover and the lipkits, everyone thought she’d be another Rob. Kendall was the one with a career and it was all because she was tall and skinny.
      And about the product line: she never claimed to create the formula. She created the concept and selected the colors and marketed it on her social media. Give props where props due. She could be on drugs. She could be a “DJ” like all the other celeb kids who just want to get paid to party. As much as her fame has brought her money, it’s also brought her a bad start to life (would you want to grow up on TV w/Kardashians?). I think she’s done far more than any if us expected of her.
      Now I will actually be impressed with her when she starts giving her billions away and brings attention to humanitarian issues. She’s only like 22 or something, so I’ll give her some time.

  8. Lightpurple says:

    That cover picture is atrocious

    And where did she get the money to start the company?

  9. Lightpurple says:

    That cover picture is atrocious

    And where did she get the money to start the company?

    • Raina says:

      What do you mean ‘where she got the money’…!!??? Cleary…from all her hard work after dropping out of school and getting her lips filled into balloons. Duh.
      Chasing Tyga around vacation spots was not easy a piece of cake.
      It takes DAYS to pick the perfect bikini.

    • jwoolman says:

      She really had nothing to lose. She had a ready-made customer base, an overpriced product that had already been successful at a lower price without her name on it, and a business plan involving limited runs that could be quickly pronounced sold out to generate more interest. Her mother would never have allowed real risk of all that money. Kylie may be naive enough to think she was just following her heart, but her mother is not.

      It’s like what Kim did with the video game. She licensed her name and image to a game that was already quite successful and was looking for a celebrity hook to sell another version of the same game. But Kim thought she was some major player in the industry as a result.

  10. girl_ninja says:

    She had her chin shaved down to practically nothing. Oh Kylie.

    • Katie says:

      If I remember correctly, she never had much of a chin as a kid, so I’m not sure I buy the chin surgery theory.

  11. Lynnie says:

    Lol the whole “She never did consumer research paragraph is funny.” Like of course you wouldn’t have to when you can have Seed Beauty do all the heavy work lmaoooo.

    I see the revisionist history is starting early with this one

    • Lynnie says:

      I also think she keeps on going back to this “sElF mADe!!1!” talking point, because if she does admit that she had the makeup company and her social platform basically handed to her then she’s admitting what she’s done is vapid and not as special as people try to claim it to be. That takes away from the hype which takes away from her cuz I think she believes in a lottttt.

    • lucy2 says:

      Yes! She acts like she was creating something from scratch – didn’t she just slap her name on a product?
      While I’ll give her some credit for at least acknowledging that she had a head start, with the fame and big following and all, I can’t roll my eyes hard enough at all the other stuff, especially the stuff about her being cut off and making all her own money. Girl, please.

  12. jules says:

    Girls needs a brain. This is so contradictory— “I had such a huge platform, I had so many followers already and I had so many people watching me,” she admits. Still, she’s eager to assert that “the self-made thing is true.”

    • Katie says:

      She’s just clarifying that the billions came from a business she built herself and not from inheritance.

      • Veronica S. says:

        She didn’t build that, either. Her siblings and parents did. She benefitted from the name recognition and television presence that she inherited from their previous work. We literally watched her grow up in the media, essentially paid to exist in the background.

        I don’t even know why it’s so hard for her to just say that. It doesn’t matter if her money came directly from her business when the entire reason she was able to slap her name on it and sell it at several times the manufacturing cost is because of the social capital she gained by association.

  13. jay says:

    The cognitive dissonance is real.

  14. Elenor says:

    no honey, you didn’t inherit your money, but its all because of your mother that you are worth that $900 million. it was her foresight to manage your sister’s porn video that got you where you are today. and that goes for all of you EXCEPT your dad. she was famous before all that.

  15. CheckThatPrivilege says:

    She invested “every last dime,” LOL. Part of inheritance is knowing you’ve got a safety net, too. She was never at risk for having to file for unemployment & SNAP benefits, or facing repo of her car, or losing health insurance or a place to live, no matter how severe a business failure.

    • Katie says:

      No one who starts a company at 18 has a lot to lose.
      And everyone who starts a company has some kind of safety net. Maybe they can move back in with their parents if they lose everything. Maybe they are married and the spouse can make just enough to take care of both through hard times. Maybe they saved enough cash to float for 6 most. while they get their business off the ground. This is how businesses are started.
      You have to take a risk and no you’re not going to end up on the street if it doesn’t work out.

      • AMAyson1977 says:

        No, this is bullshit. If her business had “failed” she wouldn’t have suffered a single ill effect. Her life would have continued exactly as it had been before, and “lip kits” wouldn’t have even caused a ripple.

        My husband started a business about 4 years ago, and it took everything we had to get it up and running. If he had failed, it would have been financially devastating. We wouldn’t have been on the street because we have family who would have taken us in (which I acknowledge is a privilege that some people don’t have), but we might well have lost our house, and our savings, and had enormous debts to repay.

        The comparison of a regular entrepreneur with Kylie Jenner is laughable and insulting to anyone who has sacrificed to open their own business.

      • Tiffany :) says:

        “No one who starts a company at 18 has a lot to lose.
        And everyone who starts a company has some kind of safety net.”

        What kind of fantasy world do you live in? “No one” is such extreme terms, and so obviously not true. Not everyone has parents they can live with. Some are in prison, some are dead, some are morally bankrupt others financially bankrupt.

        Some people have the ability to gamble without huge risks, but MANY people do not.

  16. HeyThere! says:

    I hate this whole self made fight because she lived it so she can’t realize her privilege like everyone else on planet Earth. No, she isn’t self made, not even by a long shot. Warren Buffet is self made. Oprah is self made. To me, and I realize it’s different for everyone, self made is “I came from no fame, no shoulders to ride on, and got lucky with timing, worked by butt off, and it actually happened!” THAT is self made. Known to a billionaire. That is my definition of self made. I’m not going to discredit her work she has done but Lord, let’s be honest, these ‘meetings’ and getting glam and plastic surgery and fillers, isn’t hard work. She wouldn’t know hard work, and that okay because her parents had money. She didn’t have to suffer like some other people but she did have her life sold for money and a mom that let her get work done in practically Jr. High/high school age. Kylie can’t help the decisions her parents made for her.

    I actually feel really bad for Kylie in what is going on. The loss of a best friend to insane drama can be earth shattering to anyone. BUT if everyone can forgive the men for cheating why can’t we forgive Jordyn for making out. Making out is not sex. She’s a young girl, she made a mistake. I hope she has a good family to lean in on because her life is ugly at the minute. I’m not saying what she did isn’t a big deal….I’m just hoping this isn’t her defining moment, ya know?

    • Veronica S. says:

      Honestly, I’d argue that literally nobody is self-made. The wealthy most obviously, but even those from lower class backgrounds who fought their way up got their chance somewhere, somehow at the hands of another human being. Somebody gave you the loan or the college scholarship or the confidence and encouragement to go in the right direction, but somewhere along the way, you had it. If self-made really was a thing, we’d see far more on the top than the bottom. “Self-made” is just egotistical circle-jerking snidely used to degrade the poor and blame them for their own poverty.

      • me says:

        I agree. So many people just got lucky. They knew the right people or were in the right place at the right time. There are so many people who work minimum wage who have a wayyyy better work ethic than those who work in offices and make 6 figures. We need to stop thinking that rich people just “work harder” so that’s why they are successful. It’s all bullsh*t.

  17. STRIPE says:

    SOCIAL CAPITAL! I want to scream it from the roof when I see interviews like this. Social capital is what you have other than money ( your name, network, etc) that help you get ahead. It’s more important that money in your bank account most of the time.l, because it gives you opportunities. This is also something that the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” crowd doesn’t understand.

    All these children of celebrities have a huge amount of social capital and they benefit from it in ways that money cannot buy.

  18. Millenial says:

    She definitely had a nose job. And of course whatever she did to her body. And the fillers in her lips. While I don’t think she’s had a brow lift, but I do think she’s done something around her brows (fillers, or something) to give them a light boost as well.

  19. Veronica S. says:

    Imagine growing up in that house and thinking you didn’t inherit anything. My God, the delusion of the ultra-rich. They really just can’t f*cking own their privilege, can they? It has to be special and particular in some manner.

  20. jay says:

    Inherited fame = $$. Yes, you inherited money.

  21. leela says:

    Kylie built her own business & is an almost billionaire in the same way she is an author of a YA book. The Forbes article itself said that her almost-a-billion declared worth was unverified. Kylie spends most of her time on vacations and joining concert tours – you can’t build a millions-worth company with that kind of work ethic. Her replies when asked about how she started her business is very telling as well. Its very much like a high school kid’s answer when asked about a homework they pretended they did. She is just the name & the face that an already existing company paid for – that is where she got her millions.

    • me says:

      I agree. The Kardashian girls as well as Kylie all act like great businesswomen but if you asked them ONE question about business or how a company works, they wouldn’t be able to answer. They are the names and faces of these companies but not the brains. That is obvious. Actual people that run companies don’t have 10 hours a day to take selfies or 10 vacations a year.

  22. Velvet Elvis says:

    It’s hilarious that Kylie expects people to believe that she spent her last dime on building a business. Her and a few people literally do it from her kitchen table. She has zero facilities overhead…manufacturing and fulfilment are all contracted out. No advertising because she shills it for free to her millions of Instragram followers. When this started they basically just stuck her (ripped off) design on an a product already in production and did small runs until they saw how big this was going to be. So, she’s self made in that this was a brilliant idea that worked, but she would have no product or followers to sell to were it not for her family’s tv show. Kylie is the most boring one on the show so it blows my mind that she’s the most popular one now.

  23. Shannon Malcom says:

    Meh. I see what she’s saying, she did acknowledge the huge platform. I think her version of being cut off by her parents at 15 is different than most people’s though. For most of us, that would mean, “abandoned and trying to go to school while homeless” or something. For her it just means, “I had to buy my own Chanel.” But besides Kourtney, I find her the most tolerable. And to give her some credit, Tori Spelling grew up with the same privilege handed to her, and she blew it on adultery and popping out babies and now she can’t pay her bills. So, there’s that.

  24. TheHeat says:

    I honestly don’t care how she came to make her money. If anything, the money was thrust upon her at an early age, and I’m sure there’s a cost to that, as well.
    But, truly, if anyone in that entire family can make a claim to being ‘self-made’ it’s Kris. Even before Kim’s sex tape, it was Kris who got Caitlyn (when she was Bruce) onto the public speaking circuit. It was Kris who, along with Caitlyn, made exercise videos and promoted the heck out of that gold medal. And, when Kim started hanging around with Paris Hilton, and then made her sex tape, Kris is the one who took the lemons and turned them into reality-show-lip-kit-runway-model lemonade.