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Everyone says that Kim Kardashian is famous for being famous, and there’s definitely some truth to that, but there’s more to the story.
You may or may not know that Kim started out as Paris Hilton’s assistant,
but she’s come a long way from those days and is on the path to becoming an industry titan.
Today we’re going to take a look at that journey, but first a little background.
Kimberly Noel Kardashian West is perhaps best known for starring in the television show Keeping Up with the Kardashians along with the rest of her family.
The show started in 2007 and has now been running for 17 seasons.
Kim also starred in the spin-off shows Kourtney and Kim Take Miami and Kourtney and Kim Take New York.
Kim has a strong social media presence with over 147 million followers on Instagram and 61 million followers on Twitter.
She married Kanye West in 2014, and they have 4 children together.
Kim has appeared in a few movies, and she has also launched a variety of products tied to her name, including the Kim Kardashian app.
Her most recent venture is a shapewear company that was recently renamed to Skims
after her original name, Kimono, was called out for disrespecting Japanese culture.
She has also been focused recently on social justice issues, including prison reform and gun violence.
Her net worth is around $370 million.
Let’s go back now to see how Kim the Kardashian family was formed before they were famous. Where this success story began.
Kim was born into an upper-class family in Los Angeles, California, in 1980.
If you’re not familiar with the Kardashian family dynamics, here’s a crash course.
Kim’s parents are Kris and Robert Kardashian. Kris and Rob’s other children are Kourtney, Khloe, and Rob.
They divorced in 1991 when Kim was 11, and three years later,
her father garnered a lot of attention for being part of the legal team that successfully represented OJ Simpson during his murder trial.
The same year as the divorce, her mother Kris married Olympic gold medal winner Bruce Jenner, who is now Caitlyn Jenner.
Bruce’s children Burt, Brandon, Brody, and Casey became Kim’s step-siblings.
Bruce and Kim also had two daughters named Kendall and Kylie, who are Kim’s half-sisters.
When Kim was growing up, the Kardashians were a fairly wealthy family with a lot of powerful and influential Hollywood connections,
but they weren’t in the spotlight themselves.
Of course, that would later change, but let’s go back to the start of Kim’s career.
Kardashian said that her parents were generous when she was growing up, but as soon as she turned 18,
she was cut off financially and had to start making her own way.
Because of her parents’ connections and her own personal relationships in Los Angeles,
Kim started her career helping out some big-name celebrities as a stylist, personal shopper, and assistant.
She was especially good at organizing closets.
She did work for Serena Williams, Nichole Ritchie, Lindsey Lohan, Cindy Crawford, Nicky Hilton, and Paris Hilton.
However, it was her work with her childhood friend Paris that brought her, her first taste of reality show recognition
as she appeared in several episodes of Hilton’s show The Simple Life from 2003 to 2006.
But at this time, she wasn’t really considered famous and was just seen as the minor character of Paris’ assistant, but she was about to get a lot more exposure.
Okay, you’ll have to excuse us for that exposure line,
but it’s no secret that Kim Kardashian’s career got a big boost from a leaked sex tape she made in 2003 with singer Ray-J, who was her boyfriend at the time.
The video was distributed in 2007 by Vivid Entertainment, who was sued by Kardashian.
They eventually reached a 5 million dollar settlement, and the tape was officially released under the title Kim Kardashian, Superstar.
There are plenty of rumors that Kim or even her mother orchestrated the whole thing,
especially considering the fact that a similar incident happened to Paris Hilton years earlier and resulted in much higher ratings for The Simple Life.
When Oprah once asked Kim if she thought she would still be famous if it weren’t for the tape, she replied, “I think that’s definitely how I was introduced to the world.”
We have to admit the timing was suspicious because just a few months after the sex tape was released,
the first episodes of Keeping Up with the Kardashians began to air.
Although Kim K’s sudden fame may have brought more attention to the family,
it was her mom Kris, taking on her famous momager role, that really harnessed that attention and changed the trajectory of the entire family.
She pitched a reality show focused on her family to Ryan Seacrest, and he bought into the idea completely.
By October 2007, eight months after the sex tape first began to circulate, the show was on the air.
The show was an instant hit and brought greater levels of fame and fortune to her and her entire family.
It also gave Kim a platform and an opportunity to pursue some of her other ambitions.
In 2012, Kim joined Instagram, and this played a central role in her being able to further develop her brand, which was essentially herself.
By 2018, she was charging $720,000 per sponsored post. She also started exploring the tech world.
She was able to leverage her popularity on social media to create three successful mobile apps:
Kimoji, Kim Kardashian West, and her own mobile game called Kim Kardashian: Hollywood.
This game was launched in June 2014, and over the next two years, it was downloaded 45 million times, generating 160 million dollars in revenue.
Kim personally earned $45 million of that amount over those two years, and it continues to make up a significant portion of her income today
more than her income from Keeping Up with the Kardashians.
She tapped into the power of social media and a strong and loyal following to build an incredibly influential personal brand.
But it’s not just a sheer numbers game.
Kardashian uses her instincts and her innate ability to recognize upcoming trends to help drive the success of her tech products and her social media presence.
She also has a mind for marketing, which has proved to be an invaluable trait as she builds her empire.
With her established following and proven influence, Kardashian has created a secure foundation to launch any business she desires.
She is a known trend-setter, but she also pays attention to feedback from her followers and what’s happening in the social landscape.
In 2017, she started her own beauty line called KKW Beauty, and a few months later she launched KKW Fragrance as well,
and while these two businesses are still going strong, in 2019 she shifted her focus to developing a new range of shapewear.
The line launched in June 2019 under the name Kimono,
but this caused immediate backlash as it was seen as disrespectful to Japanese culture and the significance of the Kimono.
In response, Kardashian announced that the name would be changed, and in August the name of the brand was changed to Skims.
Within the first few minutes of officially launching, nearly every item sold out with a total of $2 million in revenue.
For comparison, her competitor, Spanx, made $4 million in revenue its entire first year.
Over the last 20 years, Kardashian has gone from being a personal assistant to the stars
to being not only one of the biggest stars in the world but also a hugely successful businesswoman who is well on her way to becoming an industry titan.
When people say that Kim is famous for being famous or point to the sex tape as the sole reason that Kim Kardashian is successful,
it significantly downplays the effort, strategy, knowledge, marketing prowess, and intuition behind where Kim is today.
Yes, her association with Paris Hilton and then the infamous tape put the spotlight on her,
but it was what she chose to do with that opportunity that made the difference.
Plenty of people get their 15 minutes of fame and then they fade into the background.
While Kim shattered that expectation and continues to push herself to greater heights of success daily.
Kim leverages social media to help continually build her brand and promote her various ventures.
If you want to learn some effective strategies for doing the same thing, check out the book Social Media Marketing Mastery 2019.
It’s actually a collection of three books on social media marketing written by expert Robert Miller.
It’s normally 25 bucks, but save your money.
Just go to alux.com/freebook and sign up so that you can get the audiobook version for free thanks to our partnership with Audible!
While researching his story, we’ve come across a quote from Kardashian we’d like to share with you that goes like this:
How many times have you heard ‘be yourself’?
Yes, this is great advice, but it’s also important for you to be continually improving and growing so that when you are being yourself, you’re actually being your best self.
Now that we’re wrapping up this story, we’d like to know:
Let us know what you think in the comments.
And, of course, for sticking with us until the end, here's your...
You may think you know Kim’s dating history, but did you know she dated Michael Jackson’s nephew when she was 14?
Yes, she dated T.J., the son of Tito Jackson, for over a year starting when she was 14.
And during that time, she had a birthday celebration at Jackson’s Neverland Ranch, which she described as a magical experience.
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