With KKW Beauty and popular shapewear firm Skims, American
reality show star, Kardashian West’s net worth increases to $1 billion, earning
her a spot on Forbes’ World’s Billionaires List.
When Kim Kardashian West was first mentioned in the pages of
Forbes in 2011, it was simply a tally of her Twitter followers: 6.6 million,
just below Barack Obama and just above Ashton Kutcher.
Five years later, she graced the cover of Forbes thanks to
her booming mobile game, which helped her earn $51 million that year. Now, she
officially joins the World’s Billionaires list for the first time.
Forbes estimates that Kardashian West is now worth $1
billion, up from $780 million in October, thanks to two lucrative
businesses—KKW Beauty and Skims—as well as cash from reality television and
endorsement deals, and several smaller investments.
Kardashian West founded KKW Beauty in 2017, following the
success of her half-sister Kylie Jenner’s Kylie Cosmetics. She borrowed from
Kylie’s playbook, using a similar direct-to-consumer model that relies heavily
on social media marketing.
Her first launch, 300,000 contour kits, sold out within two
hours. By 2018, the business had expanded into eyeshadows, concealers,
lipsticks and fragrances, and was bringing in about $100 million in revenue.
“It’s the first time I’ve moved away from having licensing
deals and transitioned into being an owner,” Kardashian West told Forbes in
2017 when she announced her cosmetics line.
She cashed in on that ownership last year when she sold 20%
of KKW Beauty to cosmetics conglomerate Coty for $200 million, a deal that
valued the company at $1 billion.
While Forbes estimates that figure is a little bloated—Coty,
which also bought 51% of Kylie Cosmetics in 2020, is known for overpaying. Her
remaining 72% stake is still worth about $500 million.
Then there’s Skims, the shapewear line Kardashian West
launched in 2019. She raised money from fashion insiders like Net-a-Porter’s
Natalie Massane and Theory’s Andrew Rosen, and capitalized on her massive
social media following to shill the brand- she now has 69.6 million Twitter
followers and 213 million followers on Instagram.
During the pandemic, when consumers became more interested
in comfy clothes for the couch than in smoothing their stomachs under evening
gowns, she swiftly started turning the focus to loungewear.
Kardashian West owns a majority stake in closely-held Skims,
which hasn’t disclosed its revenues. A source familiar with Skims told Forbes
about a transaction that values the shapewear company at about $500 million. As
a result, Forbes estimates her Skims stake is worth a conservative $225
million, enough to lift her fortune to $1 billion.
The rest of Kardashian West’s fortune sits in cash and
investments, including real estate. Every year since 2012, she has earned at
least $10 million pretax, by Forbes’ count, thanks to paychecks from Keeping Up
With the Kardashians, endorsement deals and endeavours like the aforementioned
mobile game and her now-defunct Kimoji app.
She also has three properties in Calabasas, northwest of Los
Angeles, and a portfolio of blue-chip investments, including shares of Disney,
Amazon, Netflix and Adidas that her soon-to-be ex-husband Kanye West gifted her
for Christmas in 2017.
But it’s the companies that she has launched herself, and
grown with the typical Kardashian flare for self-promotion, that lands her on
the World’s Billionaires list.
As she tweeted the day she made the cover of Forbes, mocking
the criticism she’s received for years: “Not bad for a girl with no talent.”
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