Kylie Jenner faked her way to billionaire status, Forbes says
Her billionaire status is as fake as those lips.
Kylie Jenner allegedly used bogus tax returns to earn the crown of Forbes’ youngest-ever self-made billionaire — a coveted title the money magazine yanked on Friday.
Forbes published a scathing report accusing the 22-year-old star and her “momager” Kris Jenner of lying about Kylie’s net worth and earnings of her uber-successful makeup line, Kylie Cosmetics.
Forbes now estimates Kylie is worth just under $900 million — a year after bestowing on her the youngest billionaire title at age 21.
“Kylie’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,” the mag said.
Kylie and Kris are accused of giving the mag forged draft tax returns with inflated numbers to help “get a Forbes cover for Kylie” after her sister, Kim Kardashian West, landed the cover in July 2016, the report says.
The mag said it was “likely” the Jenners trumped up the success of Kylie Cosmetics every year since 2016 to appear wealthier.
“While we can’t prove that those documents were fake (though it’s likely), it’s clear that Kylie’s camp has been lying,” Forbes said.
The report does not accuse Kylie or Kris of illegally falsifying their tax returns.
A source close to the Kardashians and Jenners told The Post the famous family is driven by “sibling rivalry,” saying Kylie’s path to billionaire status was a carefully crafted “PR stunt.”
“All the Kardashian girls are screaming for attention,” the source said. “Amongst the Kardashian-Jenner family, there’s always a discussion about which of the girls would be the most successful and who has the most talent.”
Kylie all but cemented the youngest-ever self-made billionaire title in November after offloading Kylie Cosmetics — spawned from her popular $29 lip kits launched in 2015 — to beauty giant Coty for $600 million. The deal was valued at $1.2 billion, Forbes said.
Forbes said it was given documentation showing the brand made $360 million in 2018 and $330 million the year before.
But in reality, filings from the publicly traded Coty, the parent company of CoverGirl, showed Kylie Cosmetics did $125 million in 2018.
The alleged cosmetic cover-up was the worst kept secret among the beauty industry, the source told The Post.
“This was a deliberate strategy to brand Kylie as a business mogul.They aggressively pitched Forbes to put Kylie on the cover as the world’s youngest billionaire, and Forbes fell for it,” the source said. “Everybody in the beauty branding business knew Kylie’s net worth was inflated.”
Kylie’s new Forbes net worth of under $900 million factors in the estimated $340 million she raked in from the Coty sale after taxes and the economic impact of the coronavirus.
Kylie — who for years denied using lip fillers before finally owning up to it — had unseated Mark Zuckerberg as the youngest self-made billionaire ever, as part of Forbes annual list of the world’s richest people. The Facebook founder was 23 when he earned the title.
The Jenners didn’t comment to Forbes on the discrepancies.
Jenner’s rep didn’t immediately return multiple calls and emails from The Post.
But the reality TV star laughed off the report in a series of tweets to her 33.7 million followers.
“what am i even waking up to. i thought this was a reputable site..” Kylie tweeted on Friday.
“all i see are a number of inaccurate statements and unproven assumptions lol. i’ve never asked for any title or tried to lie my way there EVER. period.”