Last week, Kanye West not only announced he was running for President, but celebrated his wife Kim Kardashian reaching ‘billionaire’ status with a bizarre arrangement of flowers and tomatoes. Fast-forward to this week and Kimye continue to make headlines with reports West’s business received at least $2M in COVID-19 aid from the US government. Hear all the details below:
According to The Guardian, Kanye’s business Yeezy received millions in loans as part of the government’s Payroll Protection Program (PPP) designed to help small US businesses survive coronavirus lockdowns.
Not only did Yeezy report $1.5 billion in revenue last year, but his PPP loan has raised questions about conflicts of interest given his close ties to the Trump administration.
Earlier this week, The Daily Beast also reported that multiple businesses connected to Jared Kushner (who is President Trump’s son-in-law) were also awarded PPP loans into the millions. The Guardian states “other family members and large corporations also received money.”
Other major brands including fast food chain Shake Shack and Harvard University have reportedly returned their PPP loans after copping backlash from the public around banks favouring companies supportive of the Trump administration.
With a ‘billionaire’ wife and over $1bn in revenue last year, it’s understandable people are questioning Kanye’s loan from the government. However, according to Forbes – Kim Kardashian may not technically be a ‘billionaire’, after all.
The publication recently announced that Kardashian is probably only worth $900M after announcing the sale of a 20% stake in her KKW Beauty cosmetics company to Coty.
It’s not the first time Kimye have faced negative press in recent times. Last week, Kardashian was slammed by her social media followers for bragging about the 14 “gorgeous Friesian horses” her family has on their ranch.
One Twitter user responded, “honestly the fact that you chose a moment in time when our unemployment rate is the highest it’s ever been since the Great Depression to brag about having too many fancy horses and then couldn’t even spell the breed correctly is the perfect illustration of America in 2020.”
At this point, Kim and Kanye’s antics are far from surprising – they continue their bid for billionaire status world domination, we can only watch on with dropped jaws.
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