Kylie Jenner

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Kylie Jenner became the first woman to reach 300 million followers on Instagram in January 2022, passing the previous record holder, the singer Ariana Grande.

  That number belongs to someone who spent her childhood in front of television cameras. She is an American media personality, socialite and businesswoman, and she has been called a lot of things in the years since.

  This documentary asks how a girl from one of America's most watched families turned her own face into a company. It asks why a famous magazine's label for her became a national argument. And it asks what it costs to live so publicly, with every launch, lawsuit and rumor played out in front of an audience of hundreds of millions.

  97910

• 2. A Family on Camera

  ›

  Kylie Kristen Jenner was born on the 10th of August 1997 in Los Angeles, California. She is the youngest daughter of the Olympic decathlon champion Caitlyn Jenner, then known as Bruce Jenner, and the television personality Kris Jenner, whose maiden name was Houghton. Her older sister is Kendall. She also has eight older half-siblings. On her father's side, those are Burt, Brandon and Brody Jenner and Cassandra Marino. On her mother's side, they are Kourtney, Kim, Khloé and Rob Kardashian. Her parents divorced in 2015, before her father's transition.

  Sierra Canyon School was where she studied first, and she joined its cheerleading team. She says she also acted in school plays and community plays. In 2012 she switched to an at-home education program. She graduated in July 2015 with a diploma from Laurel Springs School in Ojai, California.

  The cameras arrived long before graduation. In 2007, Jenner, her parents and her siblings began appearing in the E! series Keeping Up with the Kardashians, which followed the personal and professional lives of the family. The network counted it a success. It led to spin-offs such as Kourtney and Kim Take Miami, Khloé and Lamar, and Kourtney and Kim Take New York. Jenner made guest appearances on several of them. By August 2011 she and Kendall were hosting Glee: The 3D Concert Movie at the Regency Village Theater in Westwood, Los Angeles. Seventeen magazine named them Style Ambassadors that year. In February 2012 they hosted the premiere of The Vow in Hollywood. A month later they interviewed the cast of The Hunger Games at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles.

  In 2020 the family announced that the flagship show would end after twenty seasons and almost 15 years on air. Its credits list 193 episodes for Jenner. The break lasted only a short time. In April 2022 the family returned with The Kardashians, after leaving E! for Hulu. The first season premiered on the 14th of April 2022 and ran for ten episodes. The second premiered on the 22nd of September 2022, and the third aired on the 25th of May 2023.

  Her private life has played out alongside the shows. She dated the Australian singer Cody Simpson in 2011. In 2015, when she turned 18, she and the rapper Tyga made their relationship official, and they broke up in April 2017. That same month she was first seen with Travis Scott at Coachella. Their daughter Stormi was born on the 1st of February 2018, and their son Aire followed on the 2nd of February 2022. In April 2023, after reports that the couple had split, Jenner began a relationship with the French-American actor Timothée Chalamet.

  1719202124

• 3. The Lip Kit

  ›

  In May 2015, an episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians aired in which Jenner admitted to having a lip augmentation. Before it premiered, she had said she simply used lip liner and drew outside her natural lip line. Her fuller lips had already set off speculation, and the admission brought even more attention.

  The publicity produced a strange side effect. Teenagers began pressing their lips into small glasses to draw blood into them and make them swell, and the stunt was nicknamed the Kylie Jenner Challenge. Nothing suggested that Jenner herself had ever done this. She responded publicly with a line aimed at her younger fans: "I'm not here to try & encourage people/young girls to look like me or to think this is the way they should look."

  Then came the product. In August 2015, Jenner announced a lipstick line sold as part of a self-titled lip kit, called the Kylie Lip Kit. In February 2016 the company was renamed Kylie Cosmetics. By then the number of kits produced had grown from an initial 15,000 to 500,000.

  In March 2016, Jenner released a promotional video about three minutes long for a series of lip glosses. Colin Tilley directed it, and it starred the models Karin Jinsui, Mara Teigen and Jasmine Sanders. The song was credited to a band called Terror Jr, which had been created on the very day the video came out. Its lead singer was later identified as Lisa Vatale, yet many people guessed the voice was Jenner's own. She later denied any involvement with the band.

  4142434552

• 4. Building the Empire

  ›

  In June 2017, the Forbes Celebrity 100 placed Jenner at number 59. The list ranks the hundred highest-paid celebrities of the previous 12 months, and she had earned approximately $41,000,000. At 19, she was the youngest person on it.

  That summer brought another screen project. Her own reality series, Life of Kylie, premiered in August 2017. Collaborations multiplied from there. On Mother's Day 2018, Kylie Cosmetics launched a makeup line called Kris Cosmetics with her mother. On Black Friday 2018, she and her half-sister Kim Kardashian released their second joint collection, KKW x Kylie Cosmetics, after a first one in 2017. In the same month she launched a Kylie Cosmetics mobile app.

  On the 26th of April 2019, Jenner's first fragrance arrived, made together with Kim Kardashian's KKW Beauty. Skincare followed. Kylie Skin launched on the 22nd of May 2019, with face washes, scrubs, moisturizers and makeup removing wipes. On the 14th of June 2019, Kylie Cosmetics released a collaboration with her half-sister Khloé, called Kylie Cosmetics x Koko Kollection. It was their third joint effort, following Koko Kollection collections in 2016 and 2017.

  In September 2019, Jenner served as makeup artistic director for Balmain's Spring 2020 runway show at Paris Fashion Week. A capsule makeup collection went on sale on the 27th of September, the day of the show. It was the first time she had made a makeup collection with anyone outside her family's inner circle.

  October 2019 turned a baby video into a business asset. Footage of Jenner singing "rise and shine" to her daughter Stormi went viral and became a meme. The hashtag #RiseandShine reached one billion views on TikTok, the fastest-growing hashtag the platform had seen. Jenner filed to trademark the phrase, along with the stretched spelling "riiise and shiiinnee". The first version would also cover cosmetics, and the second would cover clothing. The next month she sold a 51 percent stake in Kylie Cosmetics to Coty for $600 million. Coty also owns Covergirl, OPI, Rimmel, GHD and Clairol.

  In January 2020, she announced trademarks for Kylie Con, Kylie Kon and Kylie Museum. The Stormi Collection arrived on the 1st of February 2020, a Valentine's Day line timed to her daughter's birthday. Kylie Cosmetics x Kendall Jenner launched on the 26th of June 2020. In August 2020 the Summer Sailor collection introduced Jenner's first false lashes.

  6566676880

• 5. The Billionaire Question

  ›

  The August 2018 issue of Forbes put Jenner on its cover with a net worth of $900 million. The magazine said she was on the verge of becoming the youngest self-made billionaire, which would beat Mark Zuckerberg, who reached that mark at age 23.

  The words "self-made" caused the uproar. Critics argued that Jenner had been born into fame and fortune, and the phrase drew jokes online. Some commentary turned serious, with journalists writing about wealth distribution, inequality, inheritance and upward mobility. Kim Kardashian and the socialite Paris Hilton publicly defended her. Hilton, who was born into the Hilton family, described herself as self-made too.

  In 2019 the magazine estimated her net worth at US$1 billion and called her the world's youngest self-made billionaire at age 21. Then the story reversed. In May 2020, Forbes released a statement accusing Jenner of forging tax documents so she would appear to be a billionaire. It also accused her of fabricating revenue figures for Kylie Cosmetics.

  Jenner answered the same day in a series of tweets: "What am I even waking up to? I thought this was a reputable site... 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". Her attorney demanded a retraction and called the accusations "unequivocally false". Forbes held its ground. It said it had spent months uncovering the facts, and that its "extensively-reported investigation was triggered by newly-filed documents that revealed glaring discrepancies between information privately supplied to journalists and information publicly supplied to shareholders".

  The dispute did not end her appearances on the magazine's lists. In October 2020, Jenner became the youngest person on Forbes's list of the 100 Richest Self-Made Women. She was the only person in her 20s on it, with a net worth of $700 million. Forbes also named her the top earner on its highest-paid celebrities list for 2020.

  912141147

• 6. Brands and Side Projects

  ›

  At age 14, in 2012, Jenner and her sister Kendall teamed up with the clothing brand PacSun and created a clothing line, Kendall & Kylie. More deals piled up quickly. Jenner has two nail lacquers from Nicole by OPI, named Wear Something Spar-kylie and Rainbow in the S-kylie. The sisters earned $100,000 each for their OPI endorsements in 2013. In July 2013 they launched a jewelry line with Pascal Mouawad's Glamhouse, called Metal Haven by Kendall & Kylie.

  In February 2014, the sisters launched shoes and handbags for Steve Madden's Madden Girl line. In October 2014, Jenner introduced hair extensions with Bellami Hair, called Kylie Hair Kouture. In March 2015 she became only the second ambassador for the skincare brand Nip + Fab. In June 2015 the sisters released Kendall + Kylie with the British retailer Topshop, which included swimsuits. In September 2015 they launched a personalized website and mobile app.

  The list grew in the following years. Jenner released a 20-piece nail polish collection with Sinful Colors in 2016. That fall she was named a new face of PUMA, alongside Rae Sremmurd. In 2017 she fronted a special-edition Beats headphones collection made by Apple and Balmain. In June 2017 she launched sunglasses with the Melbourne brand Quay Australia, called Quay x Kylie. She endorsed Calvin Klein with her sisters in 2018, and that year she signed with Adidas as an ambassador. She also promoted SugarBearHair, Waist Gang Society waist trainers, Boxycharm, Fit Tea and Fashion Nova.

  Sponsored posts on Instagram earned her reportedly $1 million each in 2018, which made her the highest-paid individual on the platform. The next year the reported rate rose to $1.2 million per post, and she stayed on top for a second year in a row.

  Not every project worked. Jenner and Kendall co-authored a dystopian science fiction novel, Rebels: City of Indra: The Story of Lex and Livia. It follows twin girls in a self-sustaining biosphere built from the remains of Earth. Critics accused the sisters of using a ghostwriter, and Maya Sloan revealed that she had done the real writing from a two-page outline. The creative director, Elizabeth Killmond-Roman, said the sisters had held many Skype and FaceTime calls with Sloan about the story. Reviews were mostly harsh, and the novel sold only 13,000 copies in its first four months. A sequel, Time of the Twins, followed.

  On screen and in music, she took smaller roles. In June 2014, the sisters co-hosted the Much Music Video Awards, where Kylie made her acting debut in a promo filmed in Toronto. In August 2014 they appeared in PartyNextDoor's "Recognize" video, and she also appeared in Jaden Smith's "Blue Ocean". In May 2016 she rapped for the first time, on producer Burberry Perry's "Beautiful Day". She had a cameo in Ocean's 8 in 2018 and voiced Penelepuff in the 2021 television special Trolls: Holiday in Harmony. In 2023 she voiced herself in The Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror XXXIV". She also appears in the 2026 film The Moment, produced by Charli XCX and Studio365, and in March 2026 she was featured on the Yeat album ADL.

  Her newer ventures began in 2021. Kylie Swim, a swimwear line with sizes for all women, launched on the 17th of September 2021. Shoppers complained on social media about poor quality and impractical designs. Four days later she announced Kylie Baby, a skincare and hair line for babies. In 2024 she launched the clothing line Khy, including a capsule collection with the French designer Antonin Tron. That year she also released a canned cocktail called Sprinter, in black cherry, peach, grapefruit and lime.

  3137388493

• 7. Lawsuits and Backlash

  ›

  In January 2017, the make-up artist Vlada Haggarty claimed that Jenner had copied her style, including the dripping gloss lip and the golden fingertips, and passed it off as her own. Jenner later credited Haggarty on social media for her work on the creation of the logo. An undisclosed settlement was paid to head off further legal trouble.

  In February 2017, the Australian singer Kylie Minogue won a legal battle against Jenner over the name "Kylie". Jenner had filed a U.S. trademark application in 2015 to use the name for advertising services and endorsement services.

  Sara Pope, a British painter whose work has been shown in galleries across several cities, filed a lawsuit against Jenner and NBC Universal. Pope said an image Jenner posted to promote Life of Kylie closely resembled her best-known piece, "Temptation Neon", and used a neon lip logo. TMZ reported that a third-party designer had created the show's production art, including the lip design.

  The Coty deal brought a court fight of its own. Seed Beauty sued Coty and Kylie Cosmetics, alleging that Coty bought $600 million in Kylie Cosmetics stock from Jenner as a cover to learn trade secrets.

  The clothing brand drew a different kind of criticism. The non-profit Remake named Global Brands Group as the manufacturer of the Kendall + Kylie line. It said workers in the factories were not paid for finished work. The group also reported that the Jenners had fired workers in Los Angeles, a number it put above fifty-thousand. Fans online urged her to pay the workers, and the clothing line responded that Global Brands Group did not own Kendall + Kylie.

  In June 2020 the sisters addressed reports that the brand had not paid factory workers in Bangladesh during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Global Brands Group website had listed the line. The sisters said their company was owned by a separate entity called 3072541 Canada Inc. They said the brand had worked with CAA-GBG in the past "in a sales and business development capacity only" and that they "do not currently have any relationship at all with GBG".

  Two months later, in August 2020, Jenner made a cameo in the "WAP" video by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion, alongside Normani and Rosalía. A petition asking for her scene to be edited out gathered more than 65,000 signatures.

  84868150

• 8. Giving

  ›

  On the 19th of January 2014, Jenner joined her sisters Khloé and Kendall, plus Lil Twist and The Game, for a charity bowling game at the PINZ bowling alley in Studio City, California. It raised money for the Robin Hood Foundation, and The Game pledged to raise $1 million in donations. That summer the sisters took part in Chris Brown's two Kick'n It For Charity celebrity kickball games in Glendale, California, on the 19th of July and the 16th of August 2014. At the first, Jenner played on the team of the actor and singer Quincy Brown.

  Smaller gestures followed. Jenner opened an eBay account to auction off her old clothing for the benefit of Children's Hospital Los Angeles. In December 2015 she donated Christmas gifts to the Los Angeles LGBT Teen Center. In January 2017 she gave $10,000 to her then-friend Jordyn Woods to cover memorial costs after Woods's father died of cancer. On her birthday later that year, she announced a $500,000 donation from sales of her Birthday Collection to Teen Cancer America. The charity helps hospitals and outpatient facilities create special units for teens with cancer.

  Smile Train, a charity that pays for surgery for children with cleft lips and palates, made Jenner one of its youngest ambassadors. She visited Peru with the organization during an episode of Life of Kylie. In 2016 she launched a special-edition lip kit named Smile and donated $159,500 to the charity. The gift funded cleft lip and palate surgeries for 638 children.

  The gifts grew larger in 2019 and 2020. On The Ellen DeGeneres Show in September 2019, she gave $750,000 to the founder and members of Nest of Love, a feminist organization in Florida that mentors young women and helps low-income children. In January 2020 she gave a total of $1 million to five organisations in Australia fighting the bushfires. In March 2020, she, her mother Kris and the company Coty donated more than 6,000 pounds of hand sanitizer to Southern California hospitals. She also gave $1 million for face masks, face shields and other protective gear for health-care workers on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic.

  178