The members of the Kardashian family are some of the richest celebrities on the planet who are also said to be almost entirely self-made. Controversy has often sparked about to what extent this is true, seen as many of them were born into their wealth.
Kim Kardashian was born in 1980 to Kris Jenner and Robert Kardashian. Kim’s father, Robert was a very successful lawyer, earning up to $200,000 a year, making it highly likely that Kim was born into a family already worth over a million dollars, and therefore that Kim Kardashian was born rich.
Read below about where the wealth that Kim was born into came from and how she made the millions more that she has today.
Kris Jenner’s Background
Kris Jenner, Kim’s mother, was not from a particularly wealthy family and is said to be almost entirely self-made.
Kris was born in 1934 in San Diego, California and grew up there with her mother, Mary Jo Shannon, and father, Robert True Houghton, an engineer.
In 1943 Kris’s parents divorced and her and her younger sister were left with her mother, Mary.
A few years later, Mary married businessman Harry Shannon, where it was likely Kris got her first feel for what the business world was like. However, after graduating from Clairemont High School, Kris decided to become a flight attendant for a year, working for American Airlines in 1976.
It was around this time that Kris met Robert Kardashian, an already very successful lawyer. In 1978 the pair married and would have four children together, Kourtney in 1979, Kim in 1980, Khloé in 1984 and Rob in 1987.
Robert Kardashian and Caitlyn Jenner
Throughout his adult life, Robert Kardashian had a long career as a wealthy lawyer for the rich and famous of Los Angeles. It was here that Kris met some of the biggest names in Hollywood, and all of her networking would give her a strong foothold in the climb towards making her and her children their millions.
One of the many celebrities that Kris got close to was Paris Hilton. Paris is known to have kick-started Kim’s career by having the Kardashian work for her as a stylist. The pair are still good friends today, in a 2018 Twitter post, Kim tagged Paris in a picture of Kanye’s YeezySeason6.
However, Robert Kardashian divorced Kris in 1991 after discovering that she was having an affair. Kris remarried the same year, this time Olympic gold-medalist Caitlyn (then Bruce) Jenner.
Being the business-driven woman she is, Kris decided to plan how her and Bruce could profit off of his achievement. She began finding work for him, promoting products like Coca-Cola and Visa.
Kris made her millions by taking opportunities as they came, and grabbing the attention of every person she could to get her and her family’s names out there, and it was this talent that meant that Kris accumulated so much wealth, some of which Kim Kardashian would be born into.
Where Most of Kim’s Money Comes From
Although Kris didn’t have nearly as much money as she does now, the “momager” was already fairly wealthy when Kim was born, and had made lots of connections with people in high places through her first husband, Kim’s father, Robert Kardashian.
At the time of Kim’s birth, the majority of the family’s wealth came from Robert Kardashian who earned up to $200,000 a year as a lawyer and died in 2003, reportedly leaving his family $100 million estate in trust, of which Kim would partly inherit, making up more of her wealth.
Despite being born into money, partly thanks to her mother’s networking skills and partly to her father’s legal ones, Kim has made most of her money on her own accord.
The majority of Kim’s earnings come from her Sears clothing line, the Kardashian Kollection, and her beauty line, KKW beauty, which is said to have made her $100 million in revenue in 2018 alone. Even though Kim can’t say that she is completely self-made, being that she was born into a large amount of wealth, she has certainly made the most of the wealth she was born into.