Last December, Kylie Jenner was placed on Forbes’ list of top 10 richest celebrities with a net worth of $900 million. The 21-year-old makeup maven was the youngest on the list, which led to speculation that she might be named the youngest self-made billionaire, ousting Mark Zuckerberg, who clinched that title at 23. On Tuesday, Forbes made it official: Kylie Jenner was named the youngest self-made billionaire, ever.
Jenner’s success is due to Kylie Cosmetics, her makeup line. The brand has become a huge sensation despite primarily being sold online, but according to Forbes, her path to billionaire status was because of her exclusive distribution deal with Ulta and the fact that she owns 100 percent of the company. Since more than 1,000 Ulta stores started selling products of the brand in late 2018, Kylie Cosmetics sold $54.5 million worth of products in just six weeks, according to Forbes.
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Besides being the youngest billionaire, Forbes claims Jenner is the “youngest self-made billionaire.” The statement has triggered a lot of mixed reactions, with some praising Jenner and others rolling their eyes at the statement — ‘self-made’ even made it on to Dictionary.com’s most-searched word list after Forbes used it to describe Jenner in July 2018. How could a person with access to impossible wealth and fame really be self-made, the Twitterverse asked. Dictionary.com only fueled the social media outrage with a tweet that read, “Haven’t we gone over this? Self-made: Having succeeded in life unaided.”
Forbes, however, clarified their meaning of self-made: someone who built a company or established a fortune on her own, rather than inheriting some or all of it. As long as the list member didn’t inherit a business or money, she is labeled self-made.” Forbes has also applied a scoring system when claiming such titles to separate those who inherited most of their wealth and business or those who have attained their wealth through their own.
Whatever the title, in the end, Jenner is a billionaire at just 21 years old. It is a feat for anyone at her age and we’ve got our eyes peeled for what’s next for the youngest of the Kardashian-Jenner clan. Congrats, Kylie Jenner!
