Keeping up with the Kardashians has never been a problem for Emma Grede who has amassed a huge personal fortune running a multi-billion dollar business empire for the world’s most famous reality TV stars.
Home for the entrepreneur fashion guru – who is worth more than £300million – is a spectacular seven bedroom mansion in the glitzy Los Angeles enclave of Bel Air.
She also owns a £35 million cliff top retreat in Malibu which overlooks the Pacific Ocean and was once the home of Brad Pitt.
Yet Emma, 43, hasn’t always lived a fabulous jet set lifestyle among the Hollywood stars.
The Daily Mail can reveal that it all started here in a humble 1970’s terraced house in Plaistow, east London, where Emma and her three younger sisters were brought up by their single mum.
The family are thought to have lived in the three-bedroomed house until it was sold in 1996 for £55,000.
This week Emma returned for a nostalgic visit to the place where she was ‘born and raised’ after she flew back to the UK to attend her grandmother’s 90th birthday celebrations.
Posing up next to a wheelie bin outside the house with two of her sisters, Emma told her one million Instagram followers: ‘To know where you’re going, you gotta know where you came from.’
Emma Grede (centre) pictured with two of her sisters outside the humble 1970’s terraced house in Plaistow, east London, where she grew up before finding fame and fortune
Emma, now 43, pictured with her mother who brought up four children on her own
The family are thought to have lived in the three-bedroomed house in east London until it was sold in 1996 for £55,000 (Pictured: Emma with her siblings Charlotte, Rachelle, and Katie-Beth as children)
This week Emma returned for a nostalgic visit to the place where she was ‘born and raised’ after she flew back to the UK to attend her grandmother’s 90th birthday celebrations
Posting another photo of herself holding up a black umbrella to protect herself from the gloomy London drizzle and one of a rainbow on the horizon, Emma added: ‘It’s crazy to think how much a place can stay with you through your whole life no matter what happens.
‘This place is where I learned my values, it’s what taught me to always start with yourself and why I always look for rainbows no matter what.’
Before her first appearance as a guest investor on Dragon’s Den last year, few would have heard of Emma who had quietly become one of Britain’s most successful businesswomen through a string of lucrative enterprises.
She had made more of a name for herself in America, where she moved in 2017, shortly after she started working with the Kardashians.
Emma had met the family’s so-called ‘momager’ Kris Jenner at Paris Fashion Week while working at the time in talent management.
She pitched the idea of launching a ‘size-inclusive’ denim brand and went on to team up with Khloe Kardashian to sell jeans that ‘love your body’.
When the pair launched Good American in 2016 the company made $1 million dollars in sales on its opening day.
Three years later, Kim Kardashian approached Emma to help launch her shapewear business Skims which has since expanded into clothes and underwear – with England ace Jude Bellingham and pop star Sabrina Carpenter stripping down to front campaigns for the brand.
Emma has since founded Khloe Kardashian’s (right) wildly popular jeans company Good American, and Kim’s shapewear line SKIMS
Emma hosted a dinner party last month to celebrate ‘women owning their power’ and was sat next to none other than Meghan, Duchess of Sussex
Emma has now appeared on magazine covers including Entrepreneur and associates with the likes of the Kardashians and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex
Emma has become a familiar face on TV in America and appeared on the US version of Dragon’s Den called Shark Tank where she was the show’s first black female investor
Her life today is a far cry from her humble roots in the East End and she has even been appointed to the board of Barack Obama’s foundation
The company is currently valued at $5 billion and is due to open a flagship store on London’s Regent Street next year.
Emma runs the brand alongside her Swedish-born husband Jens, a wealthy businessman in his own right who helped American football legend Tom Brady launch his own line of clothing.
Emma went on to co-found Kris Jenner’s ‘plant-powered’ cleaning product business Safely and in 2023 became a founding investor in Kylie Jenner’s clothing line, Khy.
She’s a familiar face on TV in America and had appeared on the US version of Dragon’s Den called Shark Tank where she was the show’s first black female investor.
The mother-of-four went on to launch her own business podcast which has featured guests including Gwyneth Paltrow, Meghan Markle and Michelle Obama.
In April she joined the board of former US president Barack Obama’s foundation.
And she has been seen getting cozy with the Duchess of Sussex, sitting right next to her at a dinner party she hosted last month which celebrated women ‘owning their power’.
The dinner was at the home of designer Kelly Wearstler, where celebrity chef Camilla Marcus produced an entirely plant-based menu, washed down with Meghan’s As Ever wine.
Such is her success that in 2022 Emma was named America’s richest self-made woman under 40 by Forbes magazine.
According to its latest list, Forbes estimates Emma is now worth $405 million (£308 million) – putting her ahead of the likes of tennis legend Serena Williams on $350 million.
On her way to becoming rich and famous beyond her wildest dreams, Emma has frequently told how her life as a young EastEnder helped provide the foundations for her success despite her less than auspicious start in life.
Born Emma Findlay in September 1982, her father was a BT engineer of Jamaican and Trinidadian descent while her white English mother Jenny Lee took a job as an office manager with Morgan Stanley when Emma was still a toddler.
Her parents split when she was young, which meant her mother was left to raise Emma and sisters Charlotte, Rachelle and Katie-Beth alone.
Emma married her husband Jens Grede in 2012 after joining his fashion marketing firm as an employee
The couple settled down and now have four children together – the family then moved to the US
Emma said: ‘My mum would say, Listen Emma, you’re not better than anyone else nor is anyone better than you’
Emma has told how growing up in an area ‘void of aspiration’ drove her to want to make a better life for herself.
She once said of her childhood: ‘I didn’t know anyone who owned their own business. Where I come from, everyone worked for someone else.
‘Jobs were seen as exactly that. There was no career, work wasn’t purposeful.
‘You got up, went to work, found it miserable, and tried to get out of there as fast as you could.
‘For me, I thought there had to be a better way to live. Shouldn’t there be some excitement and enjoyment?’
Emma said her ‘sense of ambition’ stemmed from her hardworking mother, who raised her to have ‘huge respect’ for everyone, no matter where they came from, and to ‘really value herself and her goals’.
Emma said: ‘My mum would say, ‘Listen Emma, you’re not better than anyone else nor is anyone better than you’.
‘I’ve never felt less-than others. I always felt that if I worked hard enough and I really put everything into it, that I could achieve. I never had a sense of, ‘I can’t do it.”
She said of her life in the East End: ‘I credit so much of who I am to my upbringing.
‘We knew our neighbours and there was a real sense of community. You could trust people, you were as good as your word and I’ve taken that mentality with me.’
Her mother’s long working hours also meant Emma had to learn how to take responsibility from ‘a very young age’.
Emma and Jens first purchased a four bedroomed townhouse in London’s swish Bloomsbury district (pictured) as well as a hideaway retreat in the Cotswolds.
The four-bedroomed property lies in one of London’s most exclusive districts
The couple had four children and lived happily in London for some years before decided to move to LA
She said: ‘I’m a typical eldest daughter. I had a big role in raising my sisters because that was just the dynamic of my house.’
Emma added of her mother: ‘I was under no illusion that it wasn’t hard bringing us up.
‘She was gone a lot, but I always understood that she went to work to put a roof over our heads. That set the way I think; you get up each day and you graft.’
Despite this, Emma failed to excel in the classroom – first attending the local primary which backs onto the old family home then at Woodbridge High School which she left aged 16 with ‘terrible GCSE grades.’
She would go on to study at the London College of Fashion but dropped out after six months and it was only in her 20s that she discovered she was ‘super dyslexic’.
Emma has admitted how she was terrified her lack of qualifications would stop her from succeeding but that, in the end, she said it only pushed her to work harder and to prove herself even more.
And she had already begun to hone her entrepreneurial skills outside the classroom – leaving home at 5am to do a paper round.
Emma said earlier this year: ‘I was selling fireworks in the newsagents when I was 12 years old.
‘I had a paper round, I worked in a deli. I worked in a million different shops.’
She spent her earnings on fashion magazines and her first foray into the business began by selling counterfeit t-shirts to her teachers.
She said: ‘I was drawn to that world and those people, it was more a means of escapism. That glamour was very far from how I was being raised.’
But she added: ‘As soon as I got working I understood the power and the freedom that comes with that. And I really enjoyed it. I liked making my own money.’
Emma worked in clothes boutiques in Chelsea to help pay the bills then in 2001, aged 19, she landed an internship at Gucci, which eventually led to a job at Inca Productions, which put together fashion shows and PR events.
She went on to work for Jens’ fashion marketing firm, then aged just 26, founded ITB Worldwide, a talent management and marketing business, which she sold a decade later to the marketing giant Rogers & Cowan for an undisclosed fee.
The couple married in 2012 and settled down to start a family – buying a four bedroomed townhouse in London’s swish Bloomsbury district as well as a hideaway retreat in the Cotswolds.
They sold their London home for £5.5 million in 2020 where they were already spending more time in Snerica as their business ventures soared to new heights there.
At first the couple rented when they moved to LA In Los Angeles but in 2020 they paid $24 million (£18.3 million) for their 1930’s Bel Air home which has its own library, media room, gym, and two built-in bars.
Outside its impressive grounds include a 110ft long swimming pool and 50-seat banqueting table.
Emma’s success began snowballing after she pitched the idea of launching a ‘size-inclusive’ denim brand and went on to team up with Khloe Kardashian to sell jeans that ‘love your body’
The couple bought the house furnished but added a few of their own touches including contemporary artwork and a Jean Royère Polar Bear sofa worth a staggering $600,000.
And Emma is particularly taken by the master suite’s dressing area – which is made up of four different rooms.
She said: ‘Every time I go in there, I get a bit impressed with myself. I have a wardrobe that is bigger than my first couple of apartments.’
Along with their Oceanside weekend retreat it is now the place the couple call home for themselves and their four children Grey, 11, Lola, nine, and four-year-old twins Lake and Rafferty.
Describing how she manages to fit everything in, Emma said ‘I have a really realistic idea of what I’m supposed to do and what I’m supposed to be giving to everybody.
‘I don’t kill myself with mum guilt. Because I worked really hard to be where I am in my life, and I share that with my kids.
‘I think we’re in a culture now where the idea of what it means to be a parent has gone nuts.
‘I just don’t subscribe to it. I don’t think that my kids need packed lunch boxes with heart-shaped sandwiches and handwritten notes. There’s a lot of parental pressure that we put on ourselves.’
And she added: ‘I have nannies and housekeepers and people that work alongside me in my businesses. Nothing is just me.
‘I never want to give this idea that I’m just, like, sauntering along with everything just magically falling into place.’
