Kylie Jenner’s Percentage Of Black Employees Sparks Anger: ‘Hire More’

Kylie Jenner is facing backlash after her 2015-founded Kylie Cosmetics company revealed that only 13% of its employees are black. The 22-year-old reality star and makeup mogul – recently stripped of her billionaire title by Forbes – made headlines this week as her company answered the #PullUpToChange call. The hashtag and movement started by Uoma Beauty’s CEO Sharon Chuter was not ignored by Kylie’s brand. Sharon called on cosmetics brands to “Pull up or shut up.”

Kylie Cosmetics took to its Instagram page for transparency. The brand that was 100% owned by Kylie prior to her selling 51% of it to Coty Inc. in 2019 revealed:

13 percent are black. A total of 47 percent are BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) and 53 percent are white.

A caption accompanying the percentages, backed by a pink backdrop, read: “We are proud of the diversity within our company, with a team of Black, White, Asian, Native American, Hispanic and Middle Eastern women,” continuing: “As our team grows we commit to a continued focus on ethnic diversity in the workplace and the recruitment of black employees. The numbers you see above represent the people at our Kylie Cosmetics/Kylie Skin HQ” – the company’s leaders were then listed as being Calabasas-based star Kylie and her 64-year-old “momager” Kris Jenner.

While Kylie Cosmetics’ post racked up over 65,000 likes, also seeing many fans thank the brand for volunteering the data, some voiced anger over the percentages.

“Hire more. 13% is not enough when African Americans set the trends & standards in the beauty industry,” one fan wrote. Meanwhile, another threw in emoji as they said: “13 percent? 👀👀”

“Can we have the titles/ positions of these people 🤔?” a follower commented. “This is incredibly vague and misleading,” a third added, with a fourth saying: “”I see what y’all tried to do here but this was a swing and a miss.”

The #PullUp movement has seen some of the highest-profile brands now publicly backing Black Lives Matter in the wake of murdered 46-year-old black man George Floyd. Singer Rihanna’s SavagexFenty lingerie brand has used #PullUp in its promos, as has affordable clothing giant Fashion Nova – just this week, 38-year-old pop singer Christina Milian – who has a partner status with Fashion Nova – updated her Instagram with the hashtag.

Kylie Jenner does not appear to have responded to the backlash. The star has, however, heavily featured Black Lives Matter on her Instagram, followed by 180 million. Kylie’s May 29 post, currently sitting at over 2 million likes, opened:

“Since watching the most devastating and completely heartbreaking video showing the murder of George Floyd earlier this week I haven’t been able to get his face and his words out of my mind. i’ll never personally experience the pain and fear that many black people around the country go through every day but i know nobody should have to live in fear and nobody deserves a death like George Floyd and too many others.”