Through it all, the Kempers have been gamely keeping up appearances. Beverly Hills-based entrepreneur Ross and his wife, Linda, heiress to her late father Kirk Kerkorian’s multibillion-dollar fortune, recently attended the U.S. premiere of a Colombian auteur’s magical realist drama at TCL Chinese Theatre. Meanwhile, their eldest daughter, Tess, a 25-year-old former international debutante and burgeoning lifestyle influencer, has been responding to her more than 22,000 Instagram followers interested in her outfit of the day.
The family, known to friends and strangers as scions to the storied Hollywood tycoon Kerkorian, who long owned MGM, is part of the city’s uppermost crust. They’ve educated their three kids at top local private school Harvard-Westlake, summered in the South of France, donated to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and resided in a more than 8,000-square-foot Beverly Hills mansion above Sunset Boulevard (when not enjoying their beachfront Malibu Colony home). They made headlines a decade ago by spending a reported $450,000 on a James Bond-themed bar mitzvah party for their son that was extravagant even for their set. (The spy franchise long has been a key MGM asset.) That event, held at The Beverly Hills Hotel, included performances by Nick Jonas as well as Iggy Azalea, whose rendition of her Jennifer Lopez collaboration “Booty” featured twerking so frenzied that Azalea split her pants.
But these days, behind the scenes, there are signs that something may be amiss. Both residences have been in default. American Express, Ferrari and other creditors have been after Ross for unpaid bills. The parents have settled one lawsuit that accused them of financial predation against an elderly woman, a fellow client of their business manager, and since have defended themselves against multiple legal complaints contending fraud or contractual violations involving Doll Face, a youth-focused beauty brand the family owns and that Tess has said was purchased for her as a gift while still a teen.
The most recent Doll Face-related suit, filed by a Hong Kong lender seeking more than $2 million, states that Ross “engages in a scheme of incurring significant debts, including doing so through family affiliates and intermediaries, with no intent of ever repaying the loan despite the ability to do so and forcing his creditors to sue as a negotiation tactic to extract a discount.” The litigation also notes that Ross had promised that none of the proceeds of this loan would be “used for personal, family, or household purposes,” such as the repayment of his home loans. The head of the lending firm contends, in a sworn court statement, that Tess had vouched for the proper use of the disputed loan.
Why do the scions of someone who was not so very long ago L.A.’s richest man appear to be insolvent? What’s propelled so many aggrieved individuals and institutions to suddenly come after them?
The family declined to speak to The Hollywood Reporter. Instead, the Kempers provided a statement attributed to a spokesperson: “The Kempers cannot comment on any of the matters THR has raised due to mutual NDAs that are part of settlement agreements. Anyone can say anything in a lawsuit, whether or not it is true. Unfortunately, that’s our world today. The Kempers are proud of the reputation they have built in the business, philanthropic and social worlds. The few situations THR cites are anomalies in their 33 years of marriage. All but one of the matters has been settled and the Kempers’ lawyer is in settlement discussions on that issue. The Kempers are private people. The only reason this is even a story is because of who Linda’s father was.”
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Linda, 58, is Kerkorian’s daughter from his marriage to Las Vegas showgirl Jean Maree Hardy. (He named his Tracinda parent corporation and Lincy charitable foundation after Linda and her sister, Tracy.) The entertainment mogul, a self-made Armenian American whose investments encompassed everything from the aviation and auto industries to gambling — his hospitality business operated many of the top Las Vegas casino resorts — saw his fortune top out at $16 billion, according to Forbes, before steeply dropping after the 2008 recession. He for years had been the wealthiest Angeleno.
Kerkorian was widely known for his aversion to the press. He retained the prominent crisis PR specialist Mike Sitrick as a buffer. Sitrick — who also has strategized court-of-public-opinion issues for the likes of Vince McMahon, Paris Hilton, ICM and the Grammy Awards — was brought in to help the Kempers respond to this story after an attorney who also had worked for Kerkorian unsuccessfully lobbied to quash it.
(Another one of Kerkorian’s many lawyers, Terry Christensen, was convicted in 2008 of conspiring with notorious Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano to wiretap Kerkorian’s third wife, Lisa Bonder, amid a child custody dispute. That purported daughter, despite later being proved to be the biological child of the late film financier Steve Bing, received $8.5 million from the Kerkorian estate after his death.)
When Kerkorian died in 2015 at age 98, his estate was worth $2 billion. The bulk of it went to unspecified philanthropic organizations. But he’d established a trust to benefit Linda long prior. Its terms are confidential, yet the amount presumably was far larger than that granted to Bonder and Bing’s daughter.
The Kempers’ problems appear to have kicked off when they were sued in 2022 for financial elder abuse by 85-year-old Lisette Ackerberg, a wealthy widow suffering from end-stage Parkinson’s disease, Bell’s palsy and a host of other health issues. She alleged that the couple, in tandem with a business management firm both she and the Kempers employed, “literally stole money” out of her bank account — a series of more than a dozen unauthorized withdrawals totaling $355,000. She explained that the Kempers either knew — or should’ve known — they were receiving substantial and improper sums from her since “they signed no promissory notes or other documentation in return,” as would be the case if they were legitimate loans.
The Kempers’ co-defendant in the Ackerberg case was money manager Ken Hellie, who in 2019 settled a separate suit in which his former clients Alyssa Milano and her husband, talent agent David Bugliari, alleged he’d mishandled their finances, including forging the actress’ signature on checks. A group of limited liability companies run by Ross, 67, are tied to Hellie, who didn’t respond to THR’s request for comment.
The Kempers settled the Ackerberg matter in January 2023 for undisclosed terms. Since then, they’ve fended off lenders for both their homes, and Ross, long involved in commercial real estate (his investments have spanned retail space from downtown San Francisco and Chicago’s landmark Palmolive tower to East Hampton), has been pursued by a bank that says he failed to make monthly payments on an eight-figure note for a Streamline Moderne-style apartment building he owns a few yards from Soho House West Hollywood. The Kempers also have been chased in court for remuneration by a separate business management firm.
With Doll Face, in addition to the suit brought by the Hong Kong lender, others contend that Ross has failed to make good on loans and other financing. One of the aggrieved backers, who told a court he was out more than $1 million, explained he’d been a personal friend of the couple for years prior to the deal going bad.
Several litigants have separately said in their suits involving Doll Face that the Kempers represented they required a capital infusion so the brand could purchase inventory to meet vendor deadlines. Yet, as the Hong Kong lender argued in its September 2024 filing alleging fraud, Ross “pretended” the loan was intended for Doll Face while diverting the funds to sustain personal expenses “and settle prior debts.”
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More than a decade ago, Ross acquired Doll Face, a heritage beauty line featuring a signature retro ’40s-inspired product design, alongside a business partner, skin care industry veteran Tom Winarick. They soon rebranded it with millennial-pink packaging and introduced their overhauled collection at Manhattan luxury retailer Henri Bendel.
Tess, then attending Harvard-Westlake, told her school paper in 2012 that “my parents always knew that I was interested in makeup and cosmetics, so [Doll Face] was my present for my 15th birthday.” She explained that her father bought the brand as a gift so she’d be able to run it when she graduated college. (She later attended Cornell, where Ross serves on the business school’s Dean’s Advisory Board.) “My dad wanted to buy a company with a great name already so we wouldn’t have to go through the process of making a whole new company,” she said at the time, explaining that she’s “helping a lot with the packaging.”
Doll Face since has positioned itself as eco-friendly (“all packaging is 100% recyclable”), cruelty free (“tested on starlets, not animals”) and fair trade (“whenever possible”). On its Instagram feed, Doll Face posted behind-the-scenes video footage of Tess’ product marketing efforts.
In 2017, Tess attended the Bal des Débutantes in Paris. The storied high-society event has introduced the daughters of aristocrats (Lady Kitty Spencer), magnates (Delphine Arnault) and politicians (Barbara Berlusconi) — and plenty of Hollywood royals, from Lily Collins and Margaret Qualley to Billie Lourd and, this year, Apple Martin. In the lead-up to the event, Tess gave an interview to beauty publisher Coveteur in which she discussed Doll Face. “We’ve been reinventing it for years,” she explained.
Winarick served as Doll Face’s operational head since the partners purchased it in 2011, but he departed in February 2023. He declined to comment on why, citing a confidentiality agreement. The following month, Tess took on a creative director role at the firm. She’s also since listed herself as the company’s president. She brought the possibility of buzz to the brand: Her close friendship with Gen Z social phenomenon Sofia Richie Grainge has generated international tabloid news coverage as well as a slew of snarky Reddit threads. (Tess deactivated her social media accounts after THR contacted the Kempers.)
It’s unclear whether Doll Face is still a going concern, and the Kempers didn’t respond to inquiries about its status. Its website lists its products for sale at several European cosmetics and drug stores, as well as locally at Rite-Aid, although a spokesperson for that retailer says it’s “experiencing a stock shortage” of the brand. Employees at multiple Rite-Aid outlets separately tell THR they haven’t seen a Doll Face shipment arrive in months.
Whatever’s going on — innocent bookkeeping errors, temporary cash-flow issues or something more untoward — the Kempers aren’t saying. The tight-lipped Kerkorian adamantly believed that silence about his business was the best policy. Guided these days by Kerkorian’s own trusted legal and spin specialists, they’re following his lead.
This story appeared in the Jan. 3 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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