Here’s the news that probably none of us needed, ahead of rising unemployment rates, potential widespread evictions and skyrocketing cases of Covid-19: Kim Kardashian West is potentially a billionaire.
Recently, Kardashian West sold stakes in her beauty business, KKW Beauty, to the tune of $200 million. Forbes is reporting that the deal bumps her net worth to $900 million, although her husband, rapper Kanye West, took to Twitter to claim that she is now officially a billionaire.
“I am so proud of my beautiful wife Kim Kardashian West for officially becoming a billionaire,” he wrote. “You’ve weathered the craziest storms and now God is shining on you and our family.” The tweet came with a “still life” image of vegetables and flowers, arranged artfully on the ground.
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Twitter users responded by critiquing West en masse. One user suggested that “those who have somehow kept their businesses afloat and/or recovered from COVID [sic] have ‘weathered the storm,’” as opposed to Kardashian West. Another more directly slammed him for citing being a billionaire as “a measure of success when Black people are dying, the world is burning and the economy [is] failing.”
To add seeming insult to injury, Kardashian West also recently posted about her “14 gorgeous Friesian horses” — a new purchase — in a post that received its own wave of backlash.
Kardashian West is not the first member of her family to achieve questionable billionaire status. Half-sister Kylie Jenner, founder of Kylie Cosmetics, was named a billionaire by Forbes magazine in March 2019, although the magazine later back-tracked from that assessment.
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Whether or not Kardashian West is indeed a billionaire, she would likely win fans by taking a page from fellow female founder Sara Blakely’s book. The billionaire founder of Spanx recently offered to distribute $5 million to 1,000 female entrepreneurs struggling amid the coronavirus crisis.