Is Kylie Jenner Really "Self-Made"?

Just a few weeks ago, Forbes announced Kylie Jenner as the youngest & wealthiest "self-made" woman in the U.S. With her cosmetics company, Kylie Cosmestics, evaluated to be worth $900 million, she is set to soon surpass the current record-holder for youngest billionaire, Mark Zuckerberg, the Founder & CEO of Facebook. We all know controversy and disagreements arise surrounding the Kardashian-Jenner clan constantly, but this Forbes article has everyone up-in-arms over whether or not the youngest Jenner is really "self-made," so we decided to do a little investigating... and here's what we found!

(Photo: Teen Vogue)

There is new controversy over Pat McGrath, whose cosmetics company, Pat McGrath Labs, has just hit a $1 billion net-worth -- before Kylie's! Everyone in the Twitter-sphere is upset over McGrath's snub!

While going from a less-than-glamorous life to running a billion dollar company is impressive, it doesn't quite impress us as much as Kylie, considering McGrath is 48 years old and Jenner is only 20 years old.

Many people still believe Kylie should not have been featured because they feel her famous family helped her gain her status, therefore she is not self-made. So what does "self-made" really mean?

Self-made: having become successful or rich by one's own efforts.

Sure, Kylie may have not been the reason for the family's reality show, but she made her own money off of it and its spin-offs including her own reality show, Life of Kylie. She has had various other streams of income including a job with her sister Kendall as "Style Ambassadors" for Seventeen Magazine back in 2012, posting on social media as an influencer, and even launching her own fashion brand and writing a teen fiction novel with her sister Kendall. Sounds pretty self-made to me!

Of course she used her connections to build her cosmetics brand, but what self-made rich person hasn't? Even Mark Zuckerberg had a little help developing Facebook from his friends and took on investors. Let's be real, you're only trying to discredit Kylie because she is a part of Kardashian-Jenner family that you love to hate. She has been involved in every process of all of her business ventures, including advertising, leveraging her personal brand to sell products and grow business. Just because she did not start in a basement or a garage, that does not mean she did not get rich of her own accord, especially since this is due to her Kylie Cosmetics business - something she did on her own - and not her reality TV projects.

"...Jenner used what she had, followed her passion, and shouldn’t be faulted by it – and that we can learn something from her social media knowhow, and perhaps she can set an example for other young women in business." (BBC.com)

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