As the 20th and final season of Keeping Up With the Kardashians airs on E!, momager-mogul Kris Jenner looks to what’s next with WSJ. Magazine: a multiyear deal at Hulu, the launch of Safely, a plant-based cleaning and self-care product brand with Chrissy Teigen, and her own skin-care line in the works.
Kris Jenner Net Worth
As of October 2020, Forbes estimates that Kris’s net worth is $190 million, thanks to her position as executive producer of Keeping Up with the Kardashians and her role as family “momager,” which has her taking a percentage of her children’s earnings for deals she negotiates on their behalf.
The offices of Kylie Cosmetics are situated in the gleaming blur of a California office park corridor just off the 101, in the no man’s land beyond Calabasas. This low-slung architectural cluster, nestled into the almost cartoonishly parched and beautiful foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains, is home to corporate support centers, strip malls and restaurants with beer-and-margarita happy hours.
And here comes Kris now, wearing a black-and-white Alexander McQueen military-cut maxi-sweater with black Prada combat boots. “I’m building a house,” Kris Jenner says, as she fetches me from reception, “and I was at the job site early this morning and I was freezing.” We head off on a tour of the joint, stopping first at her and Kylie’s matching side-by-side offices, each the size of a decent apartment. “Cozy,” says Jenner and laughs. A year ago, Coty named Kris Jenner chief executive officer of Kylie Cosmetics after buying a 51 percent stake in the brand for $600 million in 2019.
She also negotiated Coty’s $200 million purchase of a 20 percent stake in KKW Beauty, Kim Kardashian West’s cosmetics line. While Jenner, 65, acknowledges that this is “definitely a great stage in my life,” she will also remind you that she’s been “CEO of my family for a very, very long time,” and “all the experience I’ve had over 30 years of being a full-time businesswoman has led me to this very spot.”
Today, she has her hand in all of their brands and endorsement deals (and gets a 10 percent cut): Kylie Cosmetics also includes skin care; Kim has her beauty and fragrance brands, plus Skims, her shapewear company; Khloé’s clothing line, Good American; Kourtney’s lifestyle platform, Poosh; Rob’s sock company, Arthur George, as well as his clothing company, Halfway Dead, and hot sauce company, Grandeza Hot Sauce; Kendall’s new tequila brand, 818; and a set of three new Kendall and Kim fragrances that come out March 25. Kris is about to launch Safely, a direct-to-consumer line of plant-based cleaning and self-care products with Chrissy Teigen and Emma Grede (the CEO of Good American), and has recently signed a multiyear deal with the streaming service Hulu, where upcoming Kardashian-Jenner television programming will now live.
There is a sense that Kris Jenner has ascended to a new league, with real power—and respect among business leaders. “I think the people in the entertainment business, people in Hollywood, people who make products that fit the family for marketing, they realize that she is this incredible engine behind all of it,” says Ryan Seacrest, the co-creator of KUWTK. “They realize, actually, the power that she has.”
Here are some of what Kris Jenner revealed to WSJ. Magazine…
Kris Jenner on the Hulu deal:
Jenner is very tight-lipped about what they’ve got in the pipeline, saying that nothing has been conceptualized and no producer has been chosen (even as she shot a Hulu promo the day before one of our interviews). “I’m guessing that we will start filming in a couple of months,” Kris Jenner says to WSJ. Magazine. “When we first got the show, many years ago, I remember signing the deal with E! and I think we were shooting 30 days later…. I think this will be the same way. We’re dying to go do things together. We all had a really nice break. And if the world opens back up it will be a lot of fun.”
Ryan Seacrest on the Hulu deal:
Seacrest will be involved in the Kardashian-Jenner Hulu future, but only “in the initial stages,” he says. “The initial concept, ideas of what the universe will look like and feel like and be like. But it is not a hands-on, laborious job. The machine runs itself.”
Seacrest on Jenner:
“She’s one of the best dealmakers that I’ve ever seen deal. And I’ve sat with the Merv Griffins and Dick Clarks of the world and watched them negotiate deals, watched them on television and be the most congenial, affable, wonderful host and then sit down at the table at the Beverly Hills Hotel and be a tough dealmaker. She has both of those qualities, which is rare.”
Kris Jenner confirms her new skincare line is in the works:
“I’m like a kid in a candy store,” Kris Jenner says to WSJ. Magazine. “And I think beauty is definitely my niche. I love all of it.” She only just trademarked a bunch of things related to her own name: “Kris Jenner Beauty,” “Kris Jenner Skin” and “Kris Jenner Skincare” among them, sparking buzz about her having her own skin-care brand in the works, which she confirms. “I’m obsessed with my skin and have always taken really good care of it,” she says. “I had my first facial when I was a very young girl and just never stopped, really. It was always a priority…. About four or five years ago, I decided to formulate a skin-care line…. I had some samples done up. So I do have a skin-care line that I love that’s ready to go…. When the time is right, a year from now, maybe two—I just think it’s really important for older women to realize that if they just take care of their skin, it’s not complicated…. So, I just did something that emulates exactly what my daily routine is. That will be my line.”
Kim on her mom’s ability to manage it all:
“We will scream at her for having her mom hat on when we need the manager hat on,” says Kim, 40. “I feel so bad for her. She deserves every award on the planet for just having six kids who have really full lives. And torturing her the way that we do.”
But Jenner’s kids point to the balance she maintains in her life that keeps her sane. “I’ve never met someone who knows how to have such a good time but also have it so together. That’s why I get up at 5:58 every morning,” Kim says. “If it was 7 a.m. and we weren’t up and our beds weren’t made, she would be on the intercom screaming and waking us all up. On a Sunday, we were so embarrassed because all my friends would sleep in until 10 and she was like, ‘Till…what? Like, past 7? This doesn’t make sense.’ She was so strict with us on so many things but then so much fun. So she taught us so much of our work ethic. That was all her.”
Khloé on her mom’s drive:
“Every hour is accounted for,” says Khloé, 36. “I think that really gave us all a great foundation. And she always says her 5 p.m. vodka martini doesn’t hurt. So it’s a little bit of both. The structuredness, and then having the vodka.”
Jenner on Kylie’s business:
“Kylie really disrupted the beauty business,” Kris Jenner says to WSJ. Magazine. “She knew exactly what she wanted to do, and exactly how she wanted to do it. She dictated the entire thing, from soup to nuts, and she used her own money…. I said, ‘Well, you better pick really good colors for your three lip kits because you’re either going to sell out in a couple of minutes or you’re going to be wearing this lipstick for the rest of your life.’”
Jenner on the beginning of Kendall’s modeling career:
One day, Jenner told me a story about wanting to jump-start Kendall’s modeling career (Kendall would go on to become the world’s highest-paid model for a couple of years in a row, according to Forbes) and how she cold-called the fashion photographer Russell James. He agreed to come to the house in Hidden Hills to meet Kendall when she was a teenager. “I said, ‘Kendall, go upstairs and put on your cutest party dress and a bow in your hair because Russell James is coming over,’” Jenner recalls. “The doorbell rings… the house with the double staircase and black-and-white floors, and here comes Kendall, and she starts down the stairs and she’s wearing black skinny jeans with a crop top and her hair flowing, major heels, and I thought: That’s not a party dress! But she knew exactly how she wanted to present herself.”
Jenner on shooting the last season during the pandemic:
“For the first couple of episodes, when Covid happened,” Kris Jenner says to WSJ. Magazine, “we were shooting by ourselves on our cellphones. The crew would drop off the equipment that we needed, or the lights that we needed, like literally in plastic bags at our front door. They wouldn’t even come in and set it up because we were so frightened of catching that virus.” Eventually, things loosened up a bit, and the family rented a beach house in Malibu to film the final season. “It was some of the best quality family time. We are always going in so many different directions, and we all have 20 jobs. But this really gave us a chance to settle and appreciate the time we were spending together, knowing it was our last season. And it was such a beautiful house and atmosphere.”
Khloe on ending KUWTK:
“You know, it was definitely a family decision. I think it was the hardest for me because I get so attached to my production crew…and I’m not a big change person,” Khloé says. “But did we all think it was time to just elevate and evolve and, you know, take ourselves out of cable and move on? Yes. I think we all knew it was time. And I think we would rather be the ones to say goodbye than someone kicking us out the door…. Leave them wanting more.”
Jenner on managing her 10 grandchildren’s careers:
She says she’s not planning on managing all of their careers, but she’s also not counting it out. Is this the last house? “I’m 65 years old,” Kris Jenner says to WSJ. Magazine, “and I start thinking…I don’t think I have the energy—as much as I’d love to think I do—to keep moving around, changing houses, creating something new…starting over all the time. But I think that process makes me really happy. I think I really have to try to be calm and settled—finally at some point.” She laughs. “And live vicariously through the kids.”
Read full interview here.
Photo credit: Maciek Kobielski for WSJ. Magazine
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