Kim Kardashian: Breaking the internet

23:52It's like a wedding on steroids and she doesn't have to pay for any of it. And that's the influencer way, isn't it? If you give me stuff, I'll put it out there. So that you, I will give you a platform that your goods and services can be seen. That's the business model. And it's a transaction that will be repeated in the years to come by any influencer from ones of 10K followers to 150K. Yeah. And it was estimated that Kim earned$17 million from exclusive deals, including, for example,$2.5 million for the photos of People magazine. You've got exclusive rights to the bridal shower with Britain's OK magazine,$100 ,000.

24:30So by 2011, she's getting up there, a net worth of around$35 million. And actually, some people say that her wedding was the most profitable business decision yet of her career. They also say a very cynical one because Kim and Kris, the happy couple, divorced after just 72 days. What is that, two and a half months? Two and a half months, yeah. And the whole thing plays out on keeping up with the Kardashians. There were accusations that it was a sham wedding for the money, but she disputed that. She said, I would never marry for a TV show for money or anything like that. Unfortunately, she then later admits that she went through with the wedding for the show because she felt pressured and I felt like I was going to let everyone down.

25:13I think that a lot of people, whether you're Kim Kardashian or not, when it gets the final wedding and everyone's there, you think, I can't pull out now. Oh, and if business is involved? Yeah. and Ryan Seacrest who was the person who basically came up with keeping up with the Kardashians he confirms the divorce on his radio show he's first to speak to Kim so this is being broadcast straight away you know breaking news it is like a whole ecosystem isn't it so you show the wedding on television you show the divorce on television you give the interview rights to the person who exec produced the show yeah funny that and one gossip columnist said Ryan Seacrest and Kim Kardashian's momager Kris Jenner they don't do anything unless they're making money off it so there's a transactional thinking about all of this stuff as well.

26:01It's interesting because the first few series of Keeping Up With The Kardashians kind of follows Kim's attempt to become more famous so in a way it's kind of like she tries not to let on that she knows she's already famous and she has all these money-making schemes like she does Playboy, she does Dancing with the stars. She does a workout plan called Fit in Your Jeans by Friday and a fake tan brand. And I think around season two, she just realises that what she's good at is just being a celebrity. There's quite an iconic quote where she goes, I have an announcement to make. Did you guys know I'm the number one Google search last week?

26:37And that's interesting, isn't it? So basically, she's identified that her skill is just pure, unadulterated fame. She can't sing, she can't dance, she can't act, she can't particularly do anything. She always says that I'm not lazy, but she doesn't have any particular ability, just the ability to be famous. This also coincides with the launch of Instagram in 2010. And she joins slightly late. So she joins in 2012. But within two years, she has 22 million followers. Yeah, and counting right now, it's around 360 million odd. And in a way, if you're a company, the ability to reach personally 360 million people with your message about what you should be wearing, what you should be doing, it's hard to put a price on that.

27:23So that's the kind of an advertiser's total dream. And she's managed to create it all by herself, which means whatever she wants to market or sell or promote, her marketing costs, her distribution costs are zero. Exactly. Because she is the billboard. She is the magazine cover. She doesn't need any of the other stuff. Which becomes very, very helpful when she's going to make the really big money. But she's not done with her nuptials yet. No, she's not. She's not done with her very famous, very sponsored marriages. So just for context, I remember this transition, if you can call it, for Kim quite clearly.

27:58Kim, because Keeping Up With The Kardashians was considered reality TV, at the time still considered quite trashy. She wasn't liked and she wasn't considered cool by the fashion industry or fashion insiders. Because you've got some background in the fashion industry. So she was not a cool ticket. No, she wasn't. But then at this point, in around 2014, she marries Kanye West, who at the time was a rap superstar. He was as big as it gets. Him and Jay-Z would just rule the roost when it came to sort of hip hop and rap. Exactly. So the murdering alone meant that they earned$21 million, according to the Daily Mail.

28:32And Kanye West gives her a total style makeover. There's actually quite a funny scene where she talks about him throwing out all her clothes. That's kind of a weird moment, isn't it? Because what does that say about the power play in that sort of marriage? I found reading about that sort of difficult, actually. That's, you know, given the fact that she's had this one relationship with this Damon Thomas, where he wanted to know where she was at all times, what she was wearing, who she was with, quite controlling and potentially abusive. This feels a bit like that. She actually talks about being sent an email from Kanye where he says, never wear big sunglasses again.

29:07you should only wear tiny sunglasses and attaches what she describes as a million images from the 90s of women in tiny sunglasses. Yeah. I think if I tried that with my other half, I think she would change the locks. You'd come back and she'd be wearing sunglasses bigger than her head. Bigger than ever, exactly. She would just say, she would, listen, there would be several fingers involved, maybe one middle one. It's funny because Kim recently has said, you know, she still loves the person that she fell in love with, Kanye, but obviously he's become hugely controversial, booted out from a lot of brands from the industry really for his comments about anti-Semitism for his support of Trump but at the time this really supercharges Kim's profile in the fashion industry.

29:49They couldn't have been a bigger higher brand sort of celebrity marriage could they and it was around this time where she breaks the internet there's that famous image of her I don't know how to describe it maybe you should google it but anyway all I will say is there's a champagne glass resting on a prominent part of her anatomy. I'm not doing a very good job at this. I'm fumbling around here. I would say just Google it because it's an extraordinary image. And this is the image that breaks the internet. And then she makes the cover of US Vogue with Kanye. So in a way, Kanye has unlocked something else here because up to that point, Vogue and Anna Wintour, the editor had sort of vetoed them on grounds of taste.

30:30I don't know what. Or vetoed her, shall I say. It's interesting because I think Anna Wintour also acknowledged that when Vogue put Kim and Kanye on the cover, it was controversial. But Anna Wintour herself said, if we just remain deeply tasteful and put deeply tasteful people on the cover, it would be a rather boring magazine and nobody would talk about us. It's very important that people do talk about us. So even Vogue and the famous icy Anna Wintour has crumbled in the face of their advancing celebrity. By this time, she's making about$28 million a year, and now mostly coming from sources other than Keeping Up with the Kardashians.

31:07So the empire is growing. The empire is growing, and it's growing to expand some quite unexpected parts, like gaming, for instance. Yeah, Kim Kardashian the game, Kim Kardashian Hollywood. I can't think of a game I'd less like to download. How do you play it? Basically, you play as Kim and you try and go from being a Z-list celebrity to an A-list celebrity. So you try and make the journey that Kim herself made. That is amazing. Again, it's kind of something kind of self-reflexive, Hall of Mirrors. You're putting yourself in the role of Kim, trying to do nothing more than make yourself more famous and have more influence at all times whilst playing a game which she's done to make money.

31:48It's sort of crazy, isn't it? It's so self-referential. And I think this is what, when I say people underestimate Kim, it's almost like there is probably a part of Kim who that realises that this is absolutely mad. Most people would never try it. But she's laughing all the way to the bank, right? It's estimated she pockets 45 % from the game. In the first five days, she makes $1.6 million. In fact, there's quite a famous tweet in 2016 where she goes, sorry, I'm late to the party, guys. I was busy cashing my 80 million video game check. And she appears again on the cover of Forbes, which is if you like, that's the newspaper for the rich and famous with the headline, the new mobile moguls.

32:29And this is an interesting point, isn't it? It seems impossible to me that Kim Kardashian could have done this in any other era. You have to be post-social media, post-smartphone for this to work. Exactly. So, you know, this is the era of Candy Crush. It's the era of Instagram. It's when everyone suddenly started getting addicted to those little phones in their hands. Yeah. So she's on top of the world. She's heading towards our billion dollar mark. But in 2016, something pretty serious happens. And this is completely out of the blue and unexpected. And it's a real shock. I remember when this happened.

33:03I mean, people were going, what the hell? Because in 2016, she's in Paris for Fashion Week, and she is robbed at gunpoint in the apartment that her and Kanye West are staying in. Yeah, and five people dressed as police officers, bound and gagged her, put her in the bathtub. She reportedly begged for her life and millions of dollars worth of jewellery stolen. They did a number on her. I mean, they didn't physically harm her, but it's hugely traumatic. and it's something that is shown on Keeping Up With The Kardashians. They film her having kind of flashbacks, crying hysterically and for the first time, or at least one of the first times, Khloe actually asks the cameras to stop rolling.

33:45And it's weird because I remember this happening. Because of the way Kim Kardashian has made her money, there was a little squeak, a little suspicion in your mind. Oh, it's another stunt. You know, it's like a celebrity wedding. it's something to increase the audience for the tv show i feel bad about suspecting that but you can't blame people for thinking that given the way she's made her money and lived her life it's sad but you know that's the kind of world that she created where you suspect that people do things for publicity yeah but we should say that after that robbery she does take a bit of a step back from social media and when she did her first interview after that she told ellen degenerates I was definitely materialistic before, but it's just not who I am anymore.

34:29I just don't care about that stuff anymore. That's quite a thing for Kim Kardashian, who's built an entire career on caring about that stuff. And more importantly, making other people care about that stuff to say. Exactly. And actually, you can kind of see a bit of a shift in her Instagram profile. So much more, many more photos of, you know, her kids, many more of her looking a bit more kind of normal. Insofar as Kim Kardashian can look like a regular person normal. not so many kind of photographs of her flaunting loads of bling understandably yeah she said that thank god it was what was me and not one of my sisters because i it would f them up for life sort of trying to say in a way she's sort of saying i'm the tough one of the family i'm the sort of i've got the resilience to deal with this interestingly this is also the period where kim starts launching new businesses yeah she launches kkw beauty yes so kim kardashian west Beauty, which is a direct-to-consumer model using social media marketing.

35:27And obviously, the social media is Kim herself. Yeah. And that's the beauty of this. In a way, it's a bit like when we talked about Rihanna and her Fenty Beauty range. She's got the most effective advertising network that money can buy, and it costs nothing. And, you know, when the brand is launched, there's 300 ,000 contour kits, and they sell out within two hours of launch in 2017 what's a contour kit sorry it's like bronzer contour which is like a darker form of foundation and highlighter so when you see different shades different shades of skin tones on your face to make you look more sculpted okay kim famously popularized contouring your face sometimes it looks very natural when it goes horribly wrong it goes very very wrong indeed yeah and this is the time which is it's the first time i've moved away from having licensing deals where like saying, you know, Kim Kardashian promotes this product and they'll pay you this much money, to actually being an owner.

36:23And as we've said before, this is the key to unlock real riches. And she owns 100%. And, you know, in many ways, she's taken inspiration from her younger sister, Kylie, who was 19 at the time and becomes a supposed billionaire through Kylie Cosmetics. Just to note, though, this status was later taken away because there were accusations of inflating profits. Yeah, I remember that story because as a business editor, we cover these stories sometimes at the BBC. And everyone's just jaw hit the floor. It's like Kylie Jenner's 19 is a billionaire. WTF. Probably a bit of a rocket for Kim saying, hang on a second, Kylie's making more money than me.

37:01Exactly. And she's only 19. Exactly. But because she owned the company. So in 2019, we go to the next stage where she launches her shapewear. You might have to tell me what that is. And lingerie line Skims. Okay, so shapewear is basically very tight pieces of underwear that suck everything in. Like a corset. Exactly. So let's say you want to fit into a very small dress for your wedding. And you don't want any kind of bulges or lumpiness. Pull on some skims and it'll smooth it all out. You will feel like you're slowly suffocating to death. That is an unfortunate side effect of shapewear, but it does the job.

37:38Probably, as I say, I'm a bit out of my depth on some of this. But Kim Kardashian seems to me to have single-handedly changed body shape images. And so this shapewear is kind of interesting because she did, well, you tell me, but it seems to me there was a pre-Kim Kardashian and a post-Kim Kardashian idea of women's bodies. Oh, yeah. So you think back to the simple life with Paris. Paris and her co-host Nicole Richie, rake thin, so skinny. And then what Kim did with Keeping Up With The Kardashians and to a lesser extent all of her sisters is introduce this really curvy aesthetic into the mainstream.

38:16So, you know, that aesthetic was kind of around, you know, in rap and hip hop. But because, you know, the circles Kim moved in because of her relationship with people like Kanye West, she kind of brought that to middle America, to all the people who loved watching reality TV. and you know some people say that she basically inspired plastic surgery kind of trends like the brazilian butt lift where you get huge amounts of uplift into your behind right which is also by the way one of the most dangerous plastic surgeries in the world but she really changed the way that people thought the human form should look like but she also did a similar thing to what rihanna did with her ranges that she focused on inclusivity.

38:58So wide range of sizes, as we've just discussed, and lots of different shades, different skin tones. That was kind of the, she was democratising high fashion and bling for everyone. And actually Kanye West is credited as being the ghost creative director on Skims, which is interesting. So, you know, she was using his kind of aesthetic knowledge as much as he was kind of using her as a platform to showcase what he thought women should look like and what women should dress like. As we said before, you know, owning the company is important. And we think that Kim owns at least a third of the company of Skims.

39:31Its initial launch made two million profits in minutes. It sold three million products in its first year. And it's at this point in 2021 that Forbes recognises Kim as a billionaire. Kim's made it. She is a billionaire. Yes, with the vast majority of that net worth coming from Skims and then KKW Beauty. So she's officially on our list. OK, so there's been quite a lot of water under the bridge since then, though. Oh, yeah. So Kim and Kanye filed for divorce in 2021, although the marriage was troubled for a long time, some would say right at the very start. And in the same year, she shuts down KKW to launch a new skincare brand called Skin by Kim.

40:10Fans kind of believe the relaunch is because she wanted to drop the W from KKW. Get rid of the W from Kanye West. Yeah. And in July just of this year, in fact, Skim's company raises an extra$270 million in funding. And overall, this company is now worth about$4 billion and adds half a billion to her net worth now comfortably over the billion at 1.7. So she is not in the grand scale of billionaires up there with the Elon Musks and Jeff Bezoses, but she's probably had one of the more interesting journeys. Yeah, because she doesn't really do anything. No. And actually, what I did notice is that in 2022, she sets up a private equity firm.

40:52So maybe she's moving more into business. I know, but it's amazing that she's managed to generate that much money. Yeah. When you think about brand Kim, you try and distill it down into what it actually is. I recognise it when I see it, but I can't describe it. It's funny. It's almost like she's an every woman or an every man who has somehow managed to tap into people's desire to see what celebrity life is like. And she's just supercharged it. I know. And also what she's done quite well is that people get tired of things quite quickly. She has, because of the quite dramatic chapters in her life, she's managed to keep us interested somehow.

41:30Exactly. I think we're going to be talking about Kim Kardashian for decades to come, to be honest. Do you? Yes. Oh, blimey. Well, we'll get to that when we start judging our billionaires, because I do not.

41:44Let's take it down to our judging of Kim Kardashian. Let's judge Kim. So what's the first category? Wealth. How rich is she? I mean, she's entry level wealth for our purposes. $1.7 billion is an awful lot of money. But for the purposes of this list, she's in pretty rarefied company with people like Jeff Bezos. So I think on absolute wealth, she scrapes in at a two. So when it comes to wealth, we also want to talk about how they wear it. You know, do they flaunt their wealth? Do they behave like a typical billionaire? And actually, I would rank Kim lower for this because she doesn't do going to space, although I'm sure they're saving it for an episode of The Kardashians.

42:27You know, she does go on holidays in the Maldives and things like that. But, you know, that isn't necessarily billionaire stuff. I would actually rank her as a kind of three out of ten. Really? Even on how she wears it, given the fact that, you know, it couldn't be more conspicuous consumerism? She has dialed back on that a lot since the robbery. And also some of the things that she wears, you know, like that famous Marilyn Monroe dress, those things are borrowed. So it's people kind of giving her things to kind of get them publicity rather than, you know, her outright buying the 500 million Marilyn Monroe dress or however much it must cost.

43:01Yeah. OK. Next one is Rags to Riches. This is not a Rags to Riches tale, is it? Yeah. I mean, she really did live with a silver spoon in her mouth, even though she says she didn't. So on Rags to Riches, score one. Yeah, I'd give her a one out of 10 for this one. Okay. Now, the next one is villainy. This is when we look at what they've done, who they've sort of done over to get where they are. Have they behaved in a ruthless, bond villainy kind of way? I don't know how to judge this one. I honestly don't because I just don't feel I understand the mindset. Do you? I don't think she's burnt business partners or screwed tons of people over directly in her climb to the top.

43:42But I think in terms of the real world effects she's had on society, you know, she helped the world exchange one unattainable beauty ideal for another unattainable beauty ideal. There is a kind of cynicism in I'll do anything, exhibit any part of my life and those of my family in return for cash. So in a way, that's a curious transaction. That's a sort of transaction with the devil, if you like. That's basically I'm giving up the facts of my life for which I'm being paid. So it's a kind of weird one, isn't it? Yeah, I think it's difficult, isn't it? It's a kind of shamelessness that I think at the time she started doing it, people looked on as kind of tasteless.

44:26But now people routinely exhibit their most intimate moments of their lives on Instagram, just like Kim did with Keeping Up With The Kardashians. It's odd. I think the times have changed with her. Yeah. Villainy, I don't know, three? I'd give her two out of ten, maybe. She's definitely not a villain, but she is a very complicated cultural figure, I think. Complicated cultural figure, I think, is a brilliant way to describe it. Yeah, it's a strange transaction she's made with the rest of the world. Okay, philanthropy. What have they done for others? So conveniently, Kim has said, I don't publicise everything I do to help charities and people all over the world.

45:06So we're going to have to take her word for it. But she does claim she donates 10 % of her wealth to charity. She has worked with a children's hospital in Los Angeles since the early 2000s. She donated money and visited patients there. And in 2017, she's actually shown on Keeping Up With The Kardashians, visiting a shelter for women and single mothers to highlight homelessness in LA. And she donated beauty products, childcare necessities, hair services, and then listened to residents tell their stories. but in the months after the episode aired this same shelter received more than a million dollars in donations.

45:40Gosh you see that's it isn't it it's the oxygen of the Kim Kardashian publicity which then gets the donations coming in that in a nutshell is how she operates. The most interesting part of her philanthropy is actually her decision to study as a lawyer to further criminal justice campaigns. Yeah in 2021 she passed an exam referred to as the baby bar which is a day-long tests required of aspiring lawyers in California who aren't taking the traditional path. And she's been using that qualification to campaign for prison reform. So she actually successfully lobbied for the release of someone called Alice Marie Johnson, who was sentenced to life in prison for a nonviolent drug offence.

46:17Her sentence was commuted by then President Trump, which is why there's that quite famous photo of her kind of in the White House next to Donald Trump. I think the point is on all of this and campaigning for prison reform, getting some people released early is that when kim kardashian turns her glare on something it gets noticed as well and that's probably her most powerful weapon when it comes to these campaigning things probably more so than the actual kind of philanthropy and donating money right because there are quite a lot of billionaires but not all of them are as famous as kim kardashian so on philanthropy i'll give her a five i actually find myself quite impressed and moved by the fact that she's kind of, you know, she doesn't have to pass the baby bar.

46:59She doesn't have to get involved in prison reform. It's got nothing to do with her profile, nothing to do with her personal narrative. I'd give her a six out of 10 for that. Okay, fair enough. Power. How much power do they wield? If Kim Kardashian told you to jump off a cliff, you wouldn't. But if she told you to buy this kind of shaping underwear or this lip gloss or whatever, you might. I'd think about it. Yeah. If influencer is a thing, then she's powerful, right? The Guardian said, in an age of platform capitalism where every person on social media is a product, she is queen. The New York Post in 2018 ran an article saying the Kardashians are officially more powerful than the Windsors.

47:41So they are the royal American family. And I think Kim really pioneered this idea where you, a person, are a brand and you perform that brand on social media. So if you think about the kind of things that people post now on Instagram, even people who are just, I don't know, just regular, normal, non-celebrities, they post as if they're celebrities. so I remember there was an interesting trend a while back where you just see normal people who didn't have sponsorship deals just kind of tagging brands and what they were wearing putting them in the caption like they were Kim Kardashian she's changed the way people think about social media yeah and I asked my daughters this and they said the thing is I think that sometimes it was shallow sometimes it was cynical but they respected her for how she played the game and therefore she was empowered in her own way.

48:34She called the shots in how she managed her own life. But I think they would give her quite a high score for power. So I would too. I'm going to give her a seven. I think I would give her a seven. I mean, being able to talk to the White House and get, you know, prison centres commuted, that's pretty powerful. That is pretty powerful. Two sevens there. Legacy. This is more complicated for me. I think that when we look back on the social media age, Kim Kardashian will be one of the people mentioned in the first paragraph because she really changed the way people thought of social media i'm a bit older than you are so the whole idea of influence of being job is a pretty double edged sword and i think that it has warped aspirations of younger people about what is important in life and secondly i think that you mentioned it earlier you know there's quite a lot of plastic surgery that happens these days because of kim kardashian that might not have happened before and I'm and some of it's quite hazardous and I'm not sure that's a brilliant thing.

49:35And you know Kim in recent months at least lost quite a lot of weight so she's going back to that old kind of slimmer figure which again is then you know creating a new beauty ideal. I think what she's done for young women's self-image and the idea of what bodies they should have it's changed an entire generation sometimes permanently in terms of the kind of surgery that they've had. It's a tricky one, isn't it? Legacy. Now, you think that we'll be talking about her in 10 years when we write the chronicles of the social media age. Do we talk about Paris Hilton very much anymore? No, not really.

50:09OK, well, I would put her in that category. No, I think we'll be talking about Kim for a while. I think Kim will make sure that we are talking about her. And if not, Christiana will come haunt you in your dreams. So I would give her an 8 out of 10. I am less confident that she will. I'm going to give her a five for that, for legacy. So Kim Kardashian, we await your next move. So we've got to decide. Kim Kardashian, good, she bad, just another billionaire. I kind of feel like maybe she gets the first just another billionaires. Yeah. She's managed to trade her privacy for money. I'm pretty morally ambivalent about that.

50:47I don't know if that's good or bad. So I'm going to agree with you. She's just another billionaire who's made her money in an unconventional way. So in the next episode, we will be talking about the world's greatest, the MVP himself, Michael Jordan. Thank you for listening to Good, Bad, Billionaire. This podcast is produced by Hannah Hufford and Mark Ward. James Cook is our editor and it's a BBC audio production.

51:27Hey, let me ask you something. Have you heard George's podcast? Me and Ben Brick are back with a blast. This time with stories from Africa's past. Not too distant, unsolved mysteries. Unsung heroes from untold histories. I'm trying to make sense of the present day. Join me on this journey by pressing play. Have you heard Georgia's podcast, Chapter 4? Listen on BBC Sounds.

52:19safe for college now. I don't have kids. You don't say. SAP Concur helps your business move forward faster. Learn more at concur.com.