Reality TV star Kim Kardashian West is not a billionaire “just yet” despite Kanye West having congratulated her for becoming one, says Forbes.
On Wednesday, the rapper tweeted that he was “so proud” of his wife for “becoming a billionaire” after it was revealed that she had sold a stake in her beauty brand for $200m (£162m).
The reality TV star turned beauty mogul sold a 20 per cent portion of KKW Beauty to Coty Inc. But Forbes has now said that Kardashian’s billionaire status is not yet confirmed. The financial publication writes that the Coty deal values KKW Beauty at $1bn after just three years in operation.
But Forbes estimates that Kim has a 72 percent stake in the company, while her mother Kris Jenner owns an 8 percent stake.
That means that while it is true that Kardashian runs a billion-dollar business, she is not quite a billionaire herself.
However, Forbes estimates Kardashian’s net worth at $900m (£721m), so she’s not far off. The news comes shortly after Forbes revoked the billionaire title attached to Kardashian’s younger half sister, Kylie Jenner. In a report titled: “Kylie Jenner’s Web of Lies”, published in May, the outlet references documents it obtained from Coty, which also purchased 51 per cent of Jenner’s beauty brand Kylie Cosmetics in November 2019 for $600m (£481m).
But according to Forbes, which declared Jenner the “world’s youngest self-made billionaire” in March 2019, the documents reportedly show Jenner’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”.
Thus, the magazine concluded that Jenner was not in fact a billionaire.
“A more realistic accounting of her personal fortune puts it at just under $900 million, despite the headlines surrounding the Coty deal that seemed to confirm her billionaire status,”
Jenner addressed the claims in Forbes’ report on Twitter, where she accused the publication of making “inaccurate statements and unproven assumptions”.
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