0:06

It's June 2018 and I'm

0:08

pulling up to Chris Jenner's house in Hidden

0:10

Hills, northwest of LA. The

0:13

first thing I do is drive up to a bougainvillea-lined

0:16

security checkpoint, where a guard

0:18

makes sure my name is on the list. Then

0:21

I head down a street that has lots of rolling,

0:23

grassy hills on either side, the gigantic

0:26

plots of land separated by miles of

0:28

white railings, the kind you'd see on a

0:30

ranch. And then, all

0:32

of a sudden, Google Maps tells

0:35

me I've reached my destination.

0:36

Like

0:41

all really expensive homes, you can't see

0:44

anything from the street, just lots of big

0:46

trees. But there's a black SUV

0:48

parked outside with two bodyguards. I

0:51

must be in the right place.

0:54

As I get close to the gigantic, Mediterranean-style

0:58

house, I think about how I'm not

1:00

really the typical fancy lady you'd

1:02

expect to see arriving here, carrying

1:05

a Christian Dior bag and driving a G-Wagon.

1:08

I'm in a tiny Prius that probably hasn't

1:10

been washed in far too long. I'm 27

1:13

years old and wearing all black. My

1:15

hair is in a bowl cut and I've got a nose ring.

1:18

I look like a hipster, not a billionaire.

1:22

But the woman I'm here to see, she

1:25

is on her way to being a billionaire. And

1:28

it's not Kris Jenner, the matriarch

1:30

of the family. It's also not

1:33

Kim Kardashian, the biggest star

1:35

of the family, the one who started

1:37

their whole dynasty just with

1:39

a sex tape.

1:40

It's the youngest daughter

1:42

of the family, Kylie Jenner. Now,

1:46

I'm not a Keeping Up With The Kardashians fan. I

1:49

pretty much never watch the show. Don't

1:51

get me wrong, I like reality TV. But

1:53

I'm more of a Love Island lover. The

1:56

competition, the unpredictability of new

1:58

love, the batch of friends.

1:59

fresh faces every season. The

2:02

Kardashians is all about family dynamics

2:05

and the family brand, and I was never

2:07

interested enough to follow it closely.

2:10

But what I have been following for years

2:13

is this family's business. Maybe

2:15

closer than anybody else outside the

2:17

family, besides their accountant. And

2:20

actually, the world doesn't know Kylie's

2:23

about to be a billionaire. Because despite

2:25

driving a Prius, I'm a reporter

2:27

for Forbes magazine, a magazine

2:30

that covers wealthy people and business. And

2:32

soon we'll be calling Kylie Jenner

2:35

the youngest self-made billionaire in

2:38

the world. In a world full of uncertainty,

2:40

one

2:40

thing is constant. The world's super rich

2:42

will often grab our attention. Forbes

2:45

has just released its annual billionaires list.

2:47

Forbes does all sorts of journalism, which they

2:49

package with ads for very expensive

2:52

watches. But it's best known for

2:54

making lots of lists of the richest people

2:56

in the world.

2:57

The brass ring of American wealth culture.

3:00

So a lot of people wonder how we compile the

3:02

Forbes billionaires list. And it's

3:04

a massive, massive undertaking. It takes many

3:07

dozen reporters many, many

3:10

hours to track down all of the

3:12

world's billionaires.

3:12

Part of my job is to verify

3:14

whether people really are billionaires.

3:17

In other words, this hipster with

3:19

a bowl cut was the gatekeeper of the

3:22

list that all these rich and powerful

3:24

people desperately wanted to be on.

3:27

My name is Kylie Kristen Jenner.

3:29

I'm 23 years old. My favorite color

3:32

is pink.

3:37

From Sony Music Entertainment and Campsite

3:39

Media, this is Infamous, and

3:41

I'm Natalie Robomit. I'm Vanessa

3:43

Grigoriatis. And this is episode

3:46

one of our series, Plumping Prophets.

3:51

This week, we're talking about the

3:54

Kardashians. You knew at some point

3:56

that this series was going to have to

3:58

talk about the Kardashians,

6:00

Now, neither Chris nor Kylie are

6:02

actually living here at this point. Apparently,

6:05

the only son, Rob Kardashian, is,

6:07

but he's nowhere to be seen.

6:09

There's a lot of smoke

6:11

and mirrors involved with the Kardashians, as

6:14

you'll come to find out. Kylie

6:16

and I would talk later.

6:18

Here's some of our interview, which no one has ever

6:20

heard before. Kylie Cosmetics

6:22

was super organic to me because

6:24

I had an insecurity with my lips when

6:27

I was younger. So I turned

6:29

to makeup to help me feel more

6:30

confident. And then

6:33

I went to the makeup store and I just like, I didn't

6:36

even know really what colors I was picking. I

6:38

was just like, I want some lip liner that looks like

6:40

the color of my lips because I just want my lips to

6:42

look fuller. And

6:43

so I was like, overline

6:46

my lips as much as possible. And

6:49

lipstick, and then it came to a point where even to this day,

6:51

I can't leave the house without lipstick. But

6:54

I could never find a lip liner and a lipstick

6:56

that matched. So, or even

6:58

the right color that was perfect

6:59

for me. Kylie's not Armenian,

7:02

like her Kardashian half-siblings, but

7:04

she has the same dark features that characterize

7:06

her family. Long brown

7:08

hair, brown doe eyes, the kind of perfectly

7:11

round apples of the cheeks that only

7:13

filler can provide. Her

7:15

face is impossibly symmetrical, and

7:18

she's beautiful in a surgically

7:20

serene way. The

7:22

day I meet her, her hair is pulled back

7:24

in a bun. I'm struck

7:27

by how quiet she is, and

7:29

how young she

7:29

seems.

7:32

Now, I've interviewed a lot of very famous

7:34

people. Not a flex, it just

7:37

comes with the territory. And Kylie is

7:39

really different to them. When

7:42

the rock walks in a room, it's like he's arrived.

7:45

He's shaking everyone's hands, giving a megawatt

7:47

smile. All eyes are on him. And

7:50

she's not like that. Kylie's

7:53

much softer spoken, much more self-contained.

7:56

She seems so confident and out there on

7:58

Instagram.

7:59

but in person, she shrinks a bit.

8:02

She's reserved, like she has a wall

8:05

up. But she is glamorous,

8:08

cool, an expert opposing, exactly

8:11

the kind of thing that works well on social media,

8:14

which might explain why she's so huge on

8:16

it.

8:18

The really weird thing about Kylie though,

8:20

is that she grew up on TV. Kim

8:24

was 27 when their reality show started

8:26

airing. Kylie was 10. She

8:29

didn't really have a life before the Kardashians

8:32

were the Kardashians. And

8:34

I can't imagine what it must do to

8:36

you to internalize and normalize everything

8:39

they've become known for. Look what I can do.

8:41

This is Kylie, a long time ago, in

8:44

the very first episode of Keeping Up with the

8:46

Kardashians.

8:47

She's in Kris Jenner's bedroom with Kim.

8:50

She's dressed in a green tank top and one of those

8:53

little bolero shrugs that were popular at the

8:55

time.

8:55

Oh my God. Oh my God. You

9:01

are a future pussycat doll. Let me see that. Oh

9:05

my God. Oh my God. So

9:08

good. In this clip, young Kylie starts dancing,

9:11

squatting low, posing with her finger to her

9:13

lips. Exactly the kind of moves

9:15

parents in the 2000s were worried kids would

9:17

copy from Britney and Christina videos.

9:20

Okay, now there's something else

9:22

in Kris's bedroom you should know about.

9:24

Back then, it was all the rage to do aerobics

9:27

with a stripper pole. So Kim had

9:29

given Kris a stripper pole for her

9:31

bedroom and Kylie

9:34

climbs on it. She swings

9:36

around it like a set of monkey bars. What

9:38

did you want to do when I did that? When Snapchat

9:40

comes around, Kylie starts posting

9:42

to it incessantly. Her popularity

9:45

explodes and she claims she

9:47

becomes the most viewed person on the app. Okay,

9:50

shut the fuck up while I make these Stampshacks. I

9:53

can't help my voices like this.

9:56

I'm a true valley girl, I'm from the valley.

9:59

By the time she... she's 17, she starts dating

10:01

24-year-old rapper Tyga. He's

10:04

best known for this strip club anthem, Rack

10:07

City. I

10:11

mean, not to be cynical, but Tyga and Kylie

10:14

are doing the oldest trick in the Hollywood

10:16

PR book. Go out with someone famous,

10:18

get papped together, cue endless articles

10:20

about drama in your relationship.

10:23

The result? You both get

10:25

more famous. Now,

10:28

there's this idea with the Kardashians

10:30

that Kris' favorite child is whoever

10:33

makes her the most money.

10:35

Here they are on Barbara Walters. Who's

10:38

your mom's favorite? Kim. Kim.

10:42

Do you agree, Kris? You know, I think it seems... I

10:44

can say it. I just say it. Oh, yes,

10:46

she's my favorite. Oh, yes, she's my favorite. We all know.

10:49

Is she what? No, she's not. Whoever

10:51

gives her the most percentage rates at the moment are

10:53

her favorites. No, that's not true. Just the most attention.

10:56

I think I

10:56

struggled for a minute with

10:59

finding something to do on

11:01

my own. And what was I going

11:03

to do? I knew I was passionate about

11:05

makeup, but I didn't know I could make...

11:08

I don't know. I can have fun every day doing my

11:10

job,

11:11

really. So Kylie still needed to prove

11:13

herself. And how do the Kardashians

11:16

prove themselves? To themselves?

11:19

To America? And most especially

11:21

to their mom? They

11:23

make money. Now we all know what Kim

11:25

Kardashian is famous for, and yep, it's

11:28

her butt. Just like if we had a BBL,

11:30

that Kardashian booty.

11:32

Will you allow me to take a selfie

11:35

with your ass? Of course. Okay,

11:38

correct. Now, there's something very gross about

11:40

how our culture is obsessed with commenting

11:42

on women's bodies,

11:44

as though that's their only value. But

11:47

the thing about the Kardashians is that there's

11:49

this whole other racial aspect

11:51

to it that I want to talk about. At

11:54

this point in time, they're famous for stereotypically

11:57

non-white features, like big butts

11:59

and big

12:01

Even though they're half-Armenian, half-white

12:03

American, or in the case of Kylie,

12:06

fully white, there is a kind

12:08

of ethnically ambiguous cosplay

12:10

going on.

12:12

And the thing is, many people think the

12:14

Kardashians aren't only famous for

12:17

being born with these features, but

12:19

that they've made themselves have those features

12:21

through surgery.

12:23

In season six of Keeping Up With

12:25

The Kardashians, Kim decides to address

12:27

the intrigue on camera. And

12:30

things get very strange very

12:32

quickly. People ask me all the time if my butt

12:34

is real. I've said numerous times

12:36

like, I haven't had plastic surgery,

12:39

I haven't had butt implants.

12:40

X-ray, X-ray, X-ray,

12:43

show us the ass, show us the ass.

12:46

What are you talking about? In this

12:48

episode, Kim's sister Khloe jokingly

12:50

suggests that Kim get her butt X-rayed

12:52

to prove that she doesn't have implants.

12:55

We want to see the goods, Kimberly. We

12:57

need some proof. So she goes to

12:59

the doctor to X-ray her butt. So

13:01

today I'm going to get a butt X-ray,

13:03

and if this is what it takes to shut up the

13:06

entire world that my butt is

13:08

real, then I will happily

13:10

do it. They decide to X-ray

13:13

Kourtney's boobs first as a sort of control.

13:16

Since

13:16

I have breast implants, we are

13:18

going to X-ray me so we

13:20

can see what an implant looks like. And

13:22

then we're going to X-ray Kim's butt and see

13:24

if she really has implants or

13:26

not. So Kourtney first.

13:29

Those are your lungs over here in this sort

13:32

of solid white area. That's your implant.

13:34

You ready for Kim's? No implant.

13:37

This is all Kim.

13:39

Maybe her butt is real. Maybe

13:41

it's fake. But it speaks to what's

13:43

so fascinating and endlessly entertaining

13:46

about the Kardashians.

13:47

What keeps so many of us coming back for more?

13:51

This question of what's real and

13:53

what's fake. Which is a driving

13:55

force behind reality TV in general. It's

13:58

this disorienting blend of feelings. fiction and reality,

14:01

and the Kardashians are the masters of the form.

14:04

All of

14:06

this is important to understand before we

14:08

get into the next part of this story, before

14:10

we discuss a part of Kylie's body that's

14:12

going to make her very famous, make

14:15

her a lot of money, and get

14:17

my attention as a reporter for Forbes. That's

14:20

coming up after the break.

14:27

Hey, I'm Mike Corey, the host

14:29

of Wondery's podcast Against the Odds.

14:32

In each episode, we share thrilling true

14:34

stories of survival, putting you

14:36

in the shoes of the heroes who live to

14:38

tell the tale.

14:40

In our next season, it's 1970

14:43

and NASA is feeling confident after

14:46

its first two successful moon landings. They

14:49

expect Apollo 13 to be

14:51

another triumph,

14:52

but early into its flight, an

14:54

explosion leaves the spacecraft

14:56

crippled and three astronauts stranded 200,000

14:59

miles from Earth.

15:02

As critical life support systems fail,

15:04

an all-star team at NASA frantically

15:07

grapples with how to bring the astronauts back

15:09

home.

15:10

Follow Against the Odds wherever you get

15:12

your podcasts. You can listen ad-free

15:15

on the Amazon Music or Wondery app.

15:18

Hi, everyone. It's Jen

15:20

Psaki. I'm excited to tell you that my weekly show on MSNBC

15:23

Inside with Jen Psaki is also available

15:25

as a podcast. I know from the years I spent

15:27

on campaign buses and foreign capitals and

15:29

in the Oval Office that there's always more to

15:32

a story under the surface. On my show,

15:34

we try to bring you inside all of it, breaking

15:36

down the things that matter and visiting with some of the

15:38

most fascinating people in the news today. Search

15:41

for Inside with Jen Psaki wherever you're listening

15:43

and follow.

16:00

Hidden Hills. In

16:02

all of these photos and videos that Kylie's

16:04

posting, all of these shots of her

16:06

with Tyga and definitely when I met her,

16:09

one thing really stands out.

16:12

Her lips. They're cushiony

16:14

and oversized like king-size pillows

16:16

and painted perfectly with a matte lipstick.

16:19

But they haven't always been this way. In

16:22

spring 2014, people noticed

16:24

that Kylie's lips have suddenly

16:26

gotten a whole lot bigger.

16:29

They were once a flat line, like a pencil.

16:32

Now they were giant. And

16:35

just like with Kim's butt, many

16:37

people think Kylie has gotten lip injections.

16:40

It becomes a thing online.

16:43

Kylie

16:43

denies it via tweet. These plastic

16:45

surgery rumors hurt my feelings to be honest

16:47

and are kind of insulting. Just in case

16:50

anyone forgot, I'm 16. But

16:52

rumors keep circling. It

16:54

was a real did she didn't she? Hi

16:57

everybody, welcome back to my channel. Today

16:59

I have done

17:00

a little tutorial purely on how

17:02

to overdraw your lips. I have seen

17:04

a bit of a resurgence in overdraw lips

17:06

since Kylie Jenner. The didn't she camp

17:08

insists Kylie is just over drawing

17:10

her lips. A technique where you line

17:13

your lips outside their natural borders to

17:15

create the illusion of fuller lips. Drag

17:17

queens do this all the time. Here's

17:20

Kim Kardashian. She like draws her

17:22

lip like you know and it looks amazing.

17:25

I go into her room and I'm like what liner

17:28

do you wear? Because she only wears

17:30

a lip liner and then she fills it. But

17:32

by April 2015, teenagers have turned this into

17:34

a viral joke.

17:38

It's the latest phenomenon sweeping social

17:40

media. Teens using shot glasses

17:43

and bottles as suction devices.

17:45

Do it yourself lip enhancement.

17:49

Yep, kids are taking shot glasses, putting

17:52

them on their mouths and then inhaling until

17:54

the glass squeeze tighter and tighter around

17:56

their lips.

17:57

When they finally take the shot glass off however

18:00

long later, their lips are swollen

18:02

into a pout the same shape as the shot

18:04

glass rim and Kylie's mouth. I

18:06

want to be doing the Kylie Jenner challenge.

18:09

This is a big viral moment.

18:12

And of course, the Kardashians are going to strategize

18:14

how to respond to it. I'm just not

18:16

ready to talk to reporters

18:19

about my lips yet because

18:21

everyone always picks us apart.

18:24

After a year of denying it, Kylie finally

18:26

comes clean. I have temporary

18:29

lip fillers. It's just an insecurity of mine

18:31

and it's what I wanted to do. People

18:33

are so quick to judge me on everything, so

18:36

I might have tipped out around the truth,

18:38

but I didn't lie. People are pissed

18:41

about it.

18:42

I mean, Kylie is 17 at the time.

18:44

And I imagine Kris thinks,

18:48

how can we make a buck out of this? Here's

18:51

what Kris said to me. I think, you

18:53

know, I love makeup. I've

18:56

always loved a glam, good glam

18:58

moment. And I've been that way since

19:00

I'm 22 years old. You know, I always like

19:02

made up my eyes and loved, you know, fashion and beauty

19:05

and it kind

19:08

of goes hand in hand. So we

19:10

did a lot of socializing in the 70s and the

19:12

80s and the 90s. So it was

19:14

always something where we're getting dolled up for something.

19:16

So being able to work hand in

19:18

hand with Kylie and be

19:21

able to work in this

19:22

business is so amazing

19:26

for me and fascinating to watch

19:29

how this whole business has evolved.

19:31

Because turns out Kylie Jenner Inc. had

19:34

filed a trademark for a new product.

19:36

A lipstick to be exact. And

19:39

it was going to be called Kylie's

19:41

Lip Kit for the perfect pout.

19:45

I mean, why not make lemonade

19:47

out of Juvederm? Here's the difference

19:49

between Dolce and candy. These

19:52

Kylie Lip Kits are matte lipsticks with

19:54

matching lip liners. They're

19:57

called lip kits because they are, you know,

19:59

too thick. things together. In

20:01

this Snapchat video, Kylie rubs the lipstick

20:04

on her hand to show off the shade. This one's

20:06

candy. It's a light, neutral

20:08

pink. And this one's Dolce. Dolce

20:11

is a warmer brown, like the color of caramel.

20:13

Cute.

20:14

I went on the website and it immediately

20:17

said sold out. Everyone knows her

20:19

lips are fake. That it's not this

20:21

lipstick that makes them look big. But

20:23

it doesn't matter. On launch

20:25

day, Kylie allegedly sells $400,000 worth

20:27

of lip kits in less than 60 seconds. Here

20:32

are the swatches for all the new curves.

20:36

Three months later, in February 2016, Kylie

20:39

restocks and adds three more shades. By

20:42

now, the name of the company has changed from

20:44

Kylie Lip Kits to Kylie

20:46

Cosmetics, a sign of her

20:49

growing ambition. Dolce is the first

20:51

to go. And they all sell out.

20:53

The second to go. And more

20:58

after the break. Hi, everyone.

21:03

Vanessa here. I

21:05

just want to say thank you for sticking with our show. And

21:07

if you have a few minutes to spare, I want to

21:10

ask you a favor. It would really

21:12

help us if you could fill out a short

21:14

listener survey. It'll help us learn

21:16

more about our audience, which will keep the

21:19

show going. We'd also love to

21:21

hear your opinions about the show. We

21:23

want to know what you think is working and what

21:25

we could do better. So please

21:27

go to infamous.fans

21:30

to fill out the survey. And yes,

21:32

you heard that

21:33

right. It's infamous.fans. It'll

21:36

take you right to a website where you can

21:38

click away to your heart's content. Thanks

21:41

so much.

21:43

Warning. This podcast contains

21:46

juicy tales of a super dysfunctional

21:48

family. As betraying brothers,

21:51

friends becoming enemies, and a mother

21:54

trying her best to keep everything

21:56

from falling apart. No,

21:58

this isn't a reality.

21:59

reality TV rewatch. I'm

22:02

Dan Jones, your host, and this

22:04

is one of my all-time favorite

22:06

true stories. Join me on a trip

22:08

to the Middle Ages to meet history's

22:11

most dangerous dynasty, the

22:13

Plantagenets. This season,

22:15

the plots are thicker, the ambitions

22:17

greater, and the betrayals are

22:20

even more devious in the epic

22:22

saga of the family that shaped

22:25

our world. From

22:27

something else in Sony Music Entertainment,

22:29

this

22:29

is history. A dynasty

22:32

to die for, season two. Listen

22:34

and follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,

22:37

Amazon Music, Stitcher, or wherever

22:39

you get your podcasts.

22:47

This is Infamous from Campside

22:49

Media. Remember how I

22:51

said that part of the Kardashian intrigue

22:54

has to do with the impossibility of knowing what

22:57

is real and what is fake?

22:59

Well, my job as a Forbes reporter

23:01

was to figure out what was real. So

23:04

I began looking into Kylie Cosmetics, this

23:07

apparently super fast-growing business.

23:11

My big question was, how much

23:13

was it, and Kylie Jenner,

23:16

really worth? If

23:19

this was a movie, now would be the

23:21

montage of a journalist rifling through

23:23

papers, knocking on doors, pacing

23:25

around an empty newsroom late at night.

23:30

The reality was a lot more boring. I

23:33

would turn on my computer each morning and start clicking

23:35

around. I looked up registration

23:38

documents and LLC details of

23:40

the manufacture of her makeup. I

23:42

made calls to various sources, talked to my

23:44

editor at Forbes about what I found.

23:47

I knew how to do this. I'd

23:49

worked on the wealth team at Forbes for a few years,

23:51

before I covered entertainment. And

23:53

it was a kooky job. I valued

23:55

private companies, figured out how much art

23:58

collections were worth, spoke to you.

23:59

yacht experts and Ferrari connoisseurs

24:02

to try and calculate just how many hundreds

24:04

of millions of dollars a particular asset

24:06

might be worth. We

24:09

looked at tax documents, annual reports,

24:11

talked to analysts. We used

24:14

our bullshit meter to fill out whether someone

24:16

was trying to talk us into a higher number. Maybe

24:19

they were trying to sell their company or get more

24:21

favorable interest rates on a loan. Or

24:24

a lower number. Maybe they wanted

24:26

to avoid a tax alert. And

24:28

now I was doing the same

24:29

with Kylie Jenner. Me

24:32

and maybe a couple hundred million dollars were

24:35

all that was standing between Kylie and

24:37

the billionaires list. And

24:40

as good as her family is at altering

24:42

appearances, at blending truth and fiction,

24:46

I had all the resources and years

24:48

of experience at Forbes at my disposal. I

24:51

was going to get the truth.

24:54

Here's a snippet of that

24:56

with Chris. My team, this

24:58

team's been with me for a decade. Yeah.

25:01

You know, for a long time. And

25:03

so it just evolves. And then Matthew's

25:05

been with me for a long time. And I

25:08

mean, listen, I'm

25:10

someone who has the same house staff for 38 years, 35

25:12

years, 38 years. So I don't like change with people. Yeah.

25:18

Because, you know, they

25:19

know your kind

25:22

of your personality stuff

25:24

and kind of what makes it tick. But I think what

25:26

makes all of us tick is from the

25:28

minute we wake up until the minute we go to bed, it's

25:30

a lot of adrenaline. Yeah. Let's go over

25:33

and do this. And okay, we're going to, and you don't even have

25:35

time to be tired. You know, you're

25:37

so excited about, you just hope

25:39

there's enough people around to execute the ideas.

25:43

But what I would come to learn was that the Kardashians

25:45

were better at shaping the narrative than

25:48

I ever could have imagined. They

25:50

didn't just shape it. They carved

25:52

it, created it, sustained

25:54

entirely new truths, slicing

25:57

and contouring their faces into oblivion.

25:59

filtering their bodies, their

26:02

entire worlds, to obfuscate

26:04

reality. And I

26:07

was about to find myself in a fun

26:09

house of mirrors.