How Kim Kardashian Became A Billionaire.

Businesswoman, reality star, future lawyer, mom, and now, billionaire. Kim Kardashian joins the Billionaires Club as the second Kardashian family member to reach this major milestone. "...genuinely so it." Kim Kardashian's net worth increased to $1 billion, making her the latest Kardashian to snag a spot on Forbes' World's Billionaires list. Her little sister, Kylie Jenner, of course, became a billionaire and made the Forbes list previously, but now Kim K can say that her decades of hard work have finally paid off. Amidst a divorce from Kanye West, law school, and a global pandemic, Kim has something to celebrate. Her perseverance and go-getter attitude has finally landed her on a list amongst the world's top business leaders and minds, cementing her position as a true icon. Her journey to this moment has been quite a whirlwind, and thanks to keeping up with the Kardashians, we feel like we've been right there by her side for everything she's achieved over the last two decades. Not that she needs an introduction, but meet Kim, the businesswoman. After a full life of glitz and glamour, Kim announced that she's studying to take the bar exam in 2022 to become a lawyer like her dad was. Since then, she's been focusing on running her various businesses, studying, and, of course, her family. She didn't become one of the most successful businesswomen in the world overnight, though. She's been at it for more than half of her life. The world was first introduced to Kim Kardashian when she appeared on The Simple Life, the OG reality show starring Paris Hilton. She appeared on the show from 2003 to 2006 as Paris' friend and stylist, but her business endeavors started much earlier than that. Her late father, Robert Kardashian Sr., instilled a hard work ethic in the reality star from a young age. Speaking to Variety, Kim said she's been working ever since she was in high school, and she didn't have one job, she had two. It's obvious that she's been juggling multiple endeavors for as long as she can remember. Kim worked at a boutique and in her dad's law office. Kim has said she's always had a passion for law, and it started with her dad, so being in his office was a place where she loved to be. During her press tour for the Justice Project, Kim said, "...I was always snooping through his papers and his evidence books during the OJ trial." Kim wasn't only sneaking around to get a glimpse at evidence, she was learning some really valuable lessons about being a businesswoman. Kim always loved shopping, and while working with her dad, she discovered eBay. Being the loving father he was, Kim's dad said she could buy five pairs of Manolo Blahnik shoes, but the catch was she had to pay back every single cent with interest. At $700 a pop, that's a lot of money for a teenager. Jennifer Lopez wore a pair of shoes in one of her music videos that everyone was talking about, and Kim saw it as an opportunity to cash in. She told Variety that she purchased five pairs for $700 each, and then resold them on eBay for $2,500 each. That's a $9,000 profit. Not bad. After that, she became an eBay guru and started to sell the clothes that she no longer wore. Perhaps this was the inspiration for what we know today as Kardashian Closet. You know, the website where you can buy clothes previously owned by the Kardashian family? Her love for shopping turned into the first business she launched with her sisters in 2006, Dash. The boutique started with one location in Calabasas, California, and expanded to more locations across the U.S. She actually thought that Keeping Up with the Kardashians was going to be an awesome way to advertise Dash stores. Little did she know that the show would swallow up her whole life, and pave the way for so many more business opportunities. In an interview with Variety, she said, "...I thought it would be great press. I didn't think it would turn into what it turned into." Keeping Up with the Kardashians was the official start of the Kardashian brand, and the Kim Kardashian brand. It was the beginning of an era that would go on to define pop culture. The show let audiences into the lives of each and every one of the Kardashian-Jenner clan. It feels like Kim became a major boss right in front of our eyes. Keeping Up with the Kardashians saw such success early on that there were several spinoffs. Audiences were treated to Kourtney & Kim Take Miami, Kourtney & Kim Take New York, and Khloe & Lamar. In 2018, Complex even called Keeping Up with the Kardashians one of the best reality shows of all time. The show helped each and every one of the family members create their own brand, but Kim felt like one of the shining stars. Just before the show launched, Kim was a part of a scandal that shook her world. In 2007, Kim's name was in all the headlines as the world learned about the scandal. After suing the company that was responsible for it, Kim settled for $5 million. She told Oprah, "...I'm not naive to that fact that that's pretty much how I was introduced to the world." With Kim's name in the headlines, the reality show hit TV screens everywhere, and a superstar family was born. Kim has always had a knack for understanding what people want and identifying how she can deliver it to them. Even as early as 2009, the business-savvy reality star realized her body was something that people were fascinated with. Instead of shying away from this, she leaned into it and released a three-DVD workout plan. The series was called Fit in Your Jeans by Friday and featured a glammed-out Kim Kardashian guiding you through a workout. In promotion for the DVDs, she said that women were always asking her how she kept her curves in such great shape, and so she decided to make her very own workout plan. This would be the beginning of Kim figuring out how to make her body work for her both literally and figuratively. Shortly after this, Kim would foray into launching Kardashian Glamour Tan with her sisters and her first perfume. Kardashian Glamour Tan was a self-tanning gel sold exclusively at Sephora, and Keeping Up With The Kardashians fans everywhere were rushing out to the stores to try this product from some of their favorite reality sisters. The gel was supposed to bronze your body and face without exposure to the sun, and also had vital vitamin D and antioxidants within it to help moisturize the skin. Her first perfume was called Kim Kardashian and carried the tagline, Step into the limelight and discover captivating beauty, magnetic allure, and enticing femininity. Experience glamour with Kim Kardashian, the voluptuous new scent. It's pretty obvious that Kim perfected the art of monetizing her life and the fascination with her every move. Remember when she was married to NBA star Chris Humphries for 72 days? Well, when she married Chris, the event brought in $18 million in licensing fees, endorsement deals, and broadcasting rights. With a lot of firsts under her belt, Kim and her sisters first launched their own clothing line, Kardashian Collection with Sears in 2011. The same year, she launched her second fragrance. This wouldn't be a list of firsts if we didn't talk about cosmetics. Kim has become known for her super successful KKW Beauty line, but she actually launched her first cosmetics line with her sisters in 2012. It was called Chroma Beauty. Kim didn't just operate in the beauty industry, she even became super successful in tech. In 2014, she launched Kim Kardashian Hollywood, a mobile app where players work to increase their reputation by gaining fans to become A-list celebrities. Sound familiar? Players were able to book modeling and acting jobs, club appearances, and go on dates. Basically, if you always wanted to be Kim Kardashian, all you had to do was download the app and voila, you had a ticket to being on the A-list. At least on the app. The game was super successful and brought in $1.6 million in the first five days. After launching the app, Kim made $52.5 million in just one year and landed at number 33 on Forbes Global Celebrity 100 of the world's highest paid entertainers. Forbes estimated that about half of those earnings came from the app. By 2015, Kim was on a roll. She had entered the beauty industry, the fashion industry, she had figured out how to monetize her social media, she was a reality star, and there was only one thing left to do, break the internet. Kim appeared on the cover of Paper Magazine and again had the whole world talking. If there's one thing she managed to perfect, it was to be at the top of everyone's minds all the time. And of course, if you're top of mind, you can charge top dollar. Kim became known for posting near-perfect selfies on social media and again leveraged her strengths to make a pretty penny. Kim launched her first book, Selfish, a coffee table book written by Kim that featured a collection of selfies from all of her social media accounts. Keeping in line with social media and tech, Kim rounded out her brand with Kimojis, emojis inspired by her life. They were a massive success and again, it seemed like everyone and their mothers were using Kimojis. So many people were downloading Kimojis that the Apple App Store actually broke. First she broke the internet and then she broke the App Store. TMZ reported that there were 9,000 downloads per millisecond. Kim tweeted, Apple, I'm so sorry I broke your App Store. Yet another way Kim used her social media to magnify her business and success. When Kim married Kanye, she gained a romantic partner and a business partner. She tweeted that her and Kanye made almost all of their kids' clothes and so they saw it as an opportunity to launch a new kids' line. The kids' supply was launched and included dresses, hats, chokers, and sweatpants. Kim was no stranger to using her social media to advertise her own products, but she had also perfected using her social media as a means to sell other products as well. In 2015, she received a whopping $500,000 for one single Instagram post. Kim again was sharing her personal life and advertised a morning sickness pill, which made her half a million dollars richer. This is where the Kim Kardashian we know today started to really flourish. In 2017, Kim launched KKW Beauty, a business that is worth a billion dollars today. Again, Kim took something that she was known for and found a way to package it and sell it to her loyal fans and followers. Kim made contouring famous, a makeup technique borrowed from stage makeup. Today, all the Kardashian sisters contour as part of their makeup routine, and it's become a pretty common technique. The first product Kim launched was her contour kit, and at $48 per kit, it sold out within minutes and earned KKW more than $13 million in sales. So many customers were hoping to be able to master the beautiful makeup technique on their own faces. She would go on to launch her own fragrance under this line as well. The first three were Crystal Gardenia, Crystal Gardenia Out, and Crystal Gardenia Citrus. The fragrances made more than $10 million in one day. Kim has always been successful in making people want to be just like her, and then creating the products to make people feel that they were just one step closer to being like the reality star. How did she master this? Through social media. By building a loyal and engaged social media following, she didn't spend money on traditional marketing, and instead marketed directly to her audience, who already loved her. We've seen her sisters do this as well, most notably Kylie Jenner. By using her famous family and friends, all Kim has to do is send products to her closest network, who post on their social channels and watch the money roll in and the products fly off the shelves. Will Skims be a billion-dollar business? While it hasn't achieved billion-dollar status yet, it's definitely on its way. Kim launched Skims in 2019 and used the same marketing strategy that worked for her in all of her other business ventures. She even showed through the pandemic that she was able to think quickly and pivot to give her customers what they want. When the whole world shut down and people started putting their evening wear away, Kim launched a new offering under the Skims brand, loungewear. Again, utilizing the public's obsession with how she looks, the shapewear line promises to give women of all shapes and sizes shapewear solutions for any outfit, and the loungewear promises comfort and style at home. All of Kim's sisters have appeared on their own social media accounts wearing the products and promoting them. If her sisters didn't charge the brand for these posts, Skims would have received millions of dollars worth of digital advertising for free. As Kim gets older, her true passions and values are coming to light. She speaks at and headlines conferences like the Forbes Women of the Year Summit and Create and Cultivate. She even spoke about the importance of privacy during a tech conference in Armenia. At the World Conference of Information Technology conference, she said, I was very okay with people knowing every detail of my life. Kim experienced a robbery while in Paris for Paris Fashion Week that helped her think about what sharing every moment of her life on social media meant when it came to safety and privacy for her and her family. She is now dedicated to speaking about it and educating others on the importance of privacy, both online and off. She has become a vocal advocate for prison reform in the United States and was inspired to study law after she helped Alice Marie Johnson get released from prison in 2018. The 62-year-old grandmother was serving a life sentence after meeting with President Donald Trump. Kim was able to influence the former president to grant Alice clemency so that she could be reunited with her family. Kim has made it clear that this cause is one that is near and dear to her heart, and she even admitted that she'll take on work she wouldn't have taken on before so that she can help do what she did for Alice for other people. At the New York Times Dealbook conference, she said, It's these situations that motivated Kim to become a lawyer. Kim doesn't have an undergraduate degree, but in the state of California, you can take the bar exam after completing an apprenticeship with a practicing lawyer. While it's not the easiest way to become a lawyer, it's obvious that Kim can accomplish anything she puts her mind to, and she already has a job waiting for her. According to TMZ, Robert Shapiro, a lawyer who worked with Kim's dad, said that if she passes the bar exam, his firm will offer her a job. Now that she's achieved billionaire status and keeping up with the Kardashians is coming to an end, we're excited to see what Kim will do next. Will she join a law firm full-time and take a break from the spotlight? Or will she continue to use the spotlight to her advantage to continue succeeding in her business ventures? Only time will tell. Kim's life has changed a lot over the years. She's experienced her fair share of scandals, drama, success, failures, loving moments with her family, and public moments that she probably wished were private. And she's always come out on top. She's shown that she's cut out to play with the big dogs in business, and she continues to prove herself through every project she takes on. I stay focused on that, and I see that so much more. What do you think Kim Kardashian will do next? Let us know in the comment section below. Like this video and subscribe to our channel if you want to stay up to date with the latest and greatest in celebrity news, and we'll see you next time on The Things Celebrity.