Family Money

The Kardashians Just Made $100 Million

E! has signed a huge new deal with America’s most beloved/reviled reality TV family.
Image may contain Kendall Jenner Kourtney Kardashian Kris Jenner Clothing Apparel Human Person and Khlo Kardashian
Courtesy of E!/Brian Bowen Smith

The other day we talked about Kylie Jenner, a minor princess in the Kardashian-Jenner dynasty, buying her own house at the age of 17. It’s a $2.7 million house! That’s a lot of money for a kid to have. How does she have it? From being on the hit E! reality show Keeping Up with the Kardashians, which follows the family as they drive around the Inland Empire solving mysteries and performing as a banjo band. (I’ve never seen an episode of the show, so I’m only guessing as to what it’s about, but Occam’s razor would suggest that it’s about mysteries and banjos.) It’s a very popular television program, one might say it’s the flagship series for the E! network, and so a lot of money has come the family’s way since the show premiered. And a lot more just arrived. Like, a lot more. Page Six is reporting that the family, led by “momager” Kris Jenner, has signed a $100 million deal to stay with E! for another four years.

One hundred million dollars. That’s about a dollar for every citizen of the Philippines. It’s a lot of money, just to be filmed as you pretend to live your life. And yet, they’re worth it, I guess. What would E! be without the Kardashians? Just Giuliana Rancic making apologies, while Ross Matthews piddles in a corner and Ryan Seacrest puts his head in his hands, suddenly finding himself missing Paula Abdul. The network needs the Kardashian-Jenner family, they are its lifeblood, they are its source of power and pride. Especially now that Kim Kardashian, the middle sister who transcended her Jan Brady-ian caste to become the star Kardashian, is married to Kanye West. The family has some artistic cred now, by association anyway.

So, $100 million and four more years of Keeping Up. Four more years of all that. Though, Bruce Jenner will not be sticking with the show. Bruce is spinning off with a solo project, which is reportedly about gender transitioning. That show will be its own interesting thing whenever it happens, but meanwhile the other Kardashians will keep chugging along like always. Solving mysteries and strumming banjos, their purple station wagon bouncing all over Temecula and Victorville, all of them rich as Croesus.

Although . . . Are they that rich? One hundred million dollars is a lotta bones, but maybe less so when you divide it up. The contract is for four years, so that’s $25 million a year. And then there are how many Kardashians and Jenners on the payroll? Like 10? Let’s guess 10. So that’s only $2.5 million each. Which, O.K., is more than most of us make in a week, yes, but it’s not that much money. Random people who work at banks make more than that. So let’s just put this big deal in a little perspective.

Still. The Kardashians are quite wealthy! And they continue to make more money. Because they offer a product that, for whatever reason, the people of this country want. We may not all understand it, it might seem strange and upsetting to many of us. But here is the $100 million fact: People want the Kardashians. They really do.