Kylie Jenner is in the hot seat after asking fans to donate to her makeup artist's GoFundMe over the weekend. Samuel Rauda, a celebrity makeup artist whose clients include Jenner, Bella Thorne, and Bebe Rexha, was recently involved in a serious accident, reportedly leaving him with $60,000 USD in medical bills. Rauda's family created a GoFundMe page to help pay for the expenses, which Jenner posted the link to on her own Instagram Story. “Swipe up to visit his family’s GoFundMe,” read the call to action.
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Before the Story had a chance to expire, Jenner was already getting dragged on social media. Immediately, fans questioned why, given her billionaire status, Jenner’s contribution to her own makeup artist’s medical bills was only $5,000 USD — and why she was soliciting her followers to put forward their own funds. A breakdown by Business Insider of how much well-known billionaires make in an hour estimates that Jenner rakes in approximately $19,000 USD every 60 minutes. By that metric, Jenner's income over roughly three hours would have paid for Rauda’s medical bills in full. With her $5,000 donation, she paid the equivalent of about 15 minutes of her time.
For reference, the current median income in the United States — the wage at which half the workforce is either paid more or less — stands at $19.33 USD an hour or about $40,000 USD per year. If someone making that wage, which could easily be a considerable swath of her fans, paid the same percentage of their respective hourly wage as Jenner did, it would come out to donating $4.83 USD.
Even without sitting down and doing the math, fans immediately got the impression that Jenner’s contribution fell short. Twitter quickly filled with people sharing their thoughts on the matter.
So Kylie Jenner who apparently earns over $450k A DAY and is a billionaire shared the 60k gofundme of her friend who got in an accident for us poor people to donate to? Celebrities are a different breed.
— Queen of the Universe 🧚🏾♂️ (@tobeebayb) March 20, 2021
wait so kylie jenner’s make up artist got into a car accident and needed $60k for emergency brain surgery and she asked her fans to donate???? and then only donated $5,000 when she’s a literal billionaire? the wrong people have money.
— nataleebfitness (@nataleebfitness) March 20, 2021
Kylie Jenner, who makes $19K/hr asking for $$$ from her fans to help her make up artist pay for a $60,000 surgery, is an excellent example of why we need universal healthcare. Even billionaire employers like Kylie and Walmart aren’t willing to pay for their employees' healthcare.
— Moumita for City Council D24 (@disruptionary) March 21, 2021
Jenner has not yet responded to fans or commented on the situation, and her Instagram Story has since expired, but with followers engaging in an important conversation around celebrity status and healthcare inequality, it seems like this backlash will last a lot longer than the next 24 hours.