Kardashian/Jenner Family Accused of Underpaying Employees: I Didn’t Make Enough Money To Make It To Work

April 13, 2022 by Twila-Amoure McDaniel in Reality TV with 0 Comments

The Kardashians

Kardashian/Jenner Family Accused of Underpaying Employees: I Didn’t Make Enough Money To Make It To Work

It seems like working for the Kardashian/Jenner clan isn’t all it’s cracked up to be!

Over the years the Kardashian/Jenner family has managed to climb to the top of the entertainment and business world. In addition to bringing in a reported 9-figure salary for their new Hulu reality series that’s set to premiere on April 14th, the ladies of the famous clan all have their own lucrative endeavors. According to reports, the net worths of the Kardashian/Jenner women range between $45 million and $1 billion.

Some might think that a family worth this much would be generous with the pay they give their employees, however, that doesn’t seem to be true for the “KUWTK” stars. Jessica DeFino recently revealed that while working as an assistant editor on the Kardashian/Jenner’s official apps she got paid so little that she sometimes,

“didn’t make enough money to make it to work.”

According to DeFino, in 2015 she worked for Whalerock Industries, which is the digital media company the Kardashian/Jenner family hired to create their apps, for a starting salary of $35,000. While she was “shopping for groceries at the 99 Cents Only Store” to help make ends meet, Kylie Jenner, 24, was celebrating 600,000 people subscribing to her app alone in the first two days. Reports at the time estimated that the family’s apps would generate $32,000,000 from the $3 monthly subscriptions in a single year.

Kylie Jenner

DeFino continued and shared that despite being underpaid she worked “days, nights, holidays, [and] weekends” in hopes of the hard work eventually paying off. She added,

“I wasn’t alone. I spoke to two former employees who worked on the apps and two former employees of KKW Beauty, Kim Kardashian’s cosmetics line, all of whom described an environment of overwork at the expense of their mental and sometimes physical health, as well as their career advancement.”

As previously reported, Kim Kardashian, 41, recently went viral over her controversial business advice telling women to “get your f*cking a** up and work.” DeFino spoke on the unsolicited tip and said,

“I thought of the extra labor I put into stretching my salary. I thought of crying in my car because I wanted to get my f*cking a** up, I wanted to be in that room, I wanted to climb the corporate ladder, whatever. I wanted to work. I just couldn’t afford to get there.”

Jennifer Chan, another person who worked on the Kardashian/Jenner apps, spoke on the questionable work experience and said,

“It was very much ‘[the family’s] schedule is your schedule.’ One Christmas, Kanye had just given [Kim], like, a million gifts, and she wanted me to post all the gifts on Christmas Day. I had to get [an internet] hotspot. It was my Christmas also, but I was posting all day to her app.”

She added,

“I don’t know if it was explicitly said, but it was pretty clear we couldn’t keep [the sisters] waiting.”

Kim Kardashian, Kanye West

It looks like the underpaid wages didn’t stop with the Kardashian/Jenner’s apps. Former employees of Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner’s makeup companies also stepped forward and called the family out for unfair treatment and low payment. While speaking about Kim Kardashian they said,

“Here’s this millionaire—she wasn’t a billionaire yet—who flaunts her excessive wealth, but she only wants [a few] people on the team because she’s cheap.”

They added,

“There was a general expectation that people were so lucky to be working for them that they knew that they could treat people like crap. That was very obvious.”

Kylie Jenner, Kim Kardashian

DeFino then revealed that she tried to freelance outside of her work time to bring in more money but she was “reprimanded” by Whalerock Industries for doing so. Her former co-worker added,

“I worked all the time. I did not sleep enough. I was drinking alcohol—way too much alcohol—to deal with the stress. I became physically unwell. My hair was falling out. I was dealing with digestive issues I had never had before. I wasn’t taking care of my body because I was prioritizing this job above literally everything in life.”

Thankfully, DeFino was able to step away from the toxic work environment.

“I eventually left the company because I couldn’t stomach being part of that cycle. Beauty didn’t feel like self-expression anymore; it felt like a sickness. It felt like a second job—another one I couldn’t afford to keep.”