The English language takes a hammering after Paris Hilton claims she's as "self-made" as Kylie Jenner
Paris Hilton needs to look at the dictionary every now and then because her vocab is seriously on a downward spiral. The heiress, who is the great-granddaughter of Conrad Hilton, better known as the man behind the hotel empire that bears their name, claims to be a self-made person.
On Monday, TMZ reported that the 37-year-old chose to give her two bits about the recent controversy regarding Forbes Magazine’s claim that Kylie Jenner was a “self-made billionaire.” Hilton chose to comment on the issue as she arrived at Los Angeles International Airport over the weekend.
“Would you call [Jenner] a self-made billionaire?” the reporter asked. “She’s a girl boss… [she’s] killing it,” Hilton said. And when she herself was asked whether or not she considers herself to be 'self-made', the heiress replied, “Obviously.”
Although the socialite did make a huge name for herself in the early 2000s by becoming a tabloid and entertainment magazine fixture owing to her lavish lifestyle, celebrity entanglements and short-lived romances, at the end of the day, that hardly makes her a self-made person.
Hilton's comment comes after ‘Keeping Up With The Kardashian’ star Kylie was reported to be on her way to supersede Mark Zuckerberg’s record to become the youngest-ever self-made billionaire. Last week, Kylie was featured in Forbes issue as one of America’s Women Billionaires.
The reality star told Forbes that she invested the initial capital for her cosmetics that she had acquired through modeling gigs in 2015. She paid an outside company to produce 15,000 of her revered lip kits that morphed into a cosmetic line, eventually taking the world by storm. "I said, I'm ready to put up my own money. I don't want to do it with anyone else. Before I even refreshed the page, everything was sold out," Kylie said.
Forbes reported the 20-year-old has sold more than $630 million worth of makeup from her brand Kylie Cosmetics since its launch and has acquired more than $800 million in less than three years of its inception. Which is quite an impressive feat considering Kylie owns 100% of the business. The rest was acquired through her stint in reality show and social media endorsements.
Kylie is not just on the Forbes' list of youngest 'self-made' billionaires, she even features on the cover of their August 2018 issue. As expected, people on Twitter were baffled and outraged at how Forbes magazine doesn't seem to grasp the simple concept of self-made.
"Another year of growth will make her the youngest self-made billionaire ever, male or female, trumping Mark Zuckerberg, who became a billionaire at age 23," Forbes reported.
No part of her life story has the remotest whiff of rags to riches for it's been documented on the family reality show 'Keeping Up With The Kardashians.' As comedian Franchesca Ramsey pointed out via a tweet: "Being born into extreme wealth and instant fame is the exact opposite of 'self-made.'"
But Forbes explains themselves saying: "We consider any person who built her own fortune, and didn't inherit the money, to be self-made. So top executives at tech firms who are compensated for helping significantly grow companies make the ranks but not second-generation-women running family businesses."
Just like Kylie, even Hilton has been a huge part of the reality tv culture which in turn has helped shape her into the person that she is today. The heiress was recently reported as being the subject of Bert Marcus' 'The American Meme', a documentary that explores the loneliness and isolation that fame brings. In the documentary, Hilton opened up about the trust issues she began developing as a result of getting "accustomed to being f***ed over" by most of the people she knew.
Hilton was a phenomenon when she broke into the scene. Many critiqued her stardom to be 'famous for being famous'. That was her problem. The heiress was an icon following the reality show 'The Simple Life' and had gained a steady fan following. Now, nearly 15 years after her wild breakout into mainstream media, Hilton opened up about the much-darker side of her fame.
The heiress says that being a star is stressful. "I'm constantly traveling; 250 days a year I'm on a plane, in a different country. So it gets really lonely sometimes," she said. The newly-engaged reality star also added that her parents think that she's crazy. "They're always like, 'Why do you let them so into your life? I can't believe you give them your phone number. You're letting them stay at your house. Like, what's wrong with you?'" Hilton said.
Hilton says that her fans adore her only because they've watched her struggle and it has made them stronger. "I'm always trying to be there for them and let them know it's OK to be them," the DJ said. Hilton owes a lot of her strength to her fans, who she calls 'Little Hiltons'. "I can truly be myself around them. I know they're not judging me, they're not trying to use me. They just genuinely love me," the businesswoman said.