Two Friends Started 'Boys Lie' After Brutal Breakups — Now Gigi Hadid, Kylie Jenner Wear Their $10M Brand

Tori Robinson and Leah O'Malley got drunk on St Patrick's Day 2017 and decided to start a business. Both were reeling from brutal break-ups—their exes were best friends—and the phrase they kept shouting to each other through the wreckage stuck. Boys lie. It was supposed to be a cosmetics brand.

'We totally thought we were going to be the next Kylie Cosmetics,' Robinson said on the Female Founder World podcast. 'We failed miserably.'

Seven years on, that drunken mantra has become a Los Angeles streetwear label generating more than $10 million (£7.9 million) in annual sales. The founders, both 31, have never spent a penny on paid advertising and have not taken venture capital, Entrepreneur confirmed. They have paid back the $250,000 (£197,000) friends-and-family loan that got the brand off the ground.

'We're out of the block,' O'Malley said. 'Out of even owing money back to friends and family.'

A Failed Makeup Line and the $250,000 Boys Lie Pivot

Robinson and O'Malley grew up together in Wayne, Pennsylvania, and have known each other since they were 12. Both were working in cosmetics sales when they borrowed the $250,000 (£197,000) and launched Boys Lie as a makeup brand in 2018. It went nowhere. Revenue that first year came to roughly $250,000 (£197,000), and most of it was driven not by the lipsticks but by two pieces of branded merchandise they had been selling alongside the cosmetics.

They ditched the makeup entirely in 2019 and rebuilt the brand around clothing—bold graphics, cheeky slogans and angel-and-devil motifs aimed at women processing heartbreak. Revenue settled at around $600,000 (£474,000). Then they started blindly shipping free product to anyone whose address they could get.

What happened next nearly defies belief. 'In the height of her breakup with Tyler Cameron, Gigi came downstairs in a full paparazzi moment, head to toe in Boys Lie,' Robinson recalled. 'The brand took off.'

Robinson said the founders were holding a meeting about shutting down the company that same day when a tabloid image of Hadid wearing their clothes landed on their phones. 'The first year we did 250K in rev,' she said. 'Then the following year we did 5 million.'

Gigi Hadid and the Boys Lie Celebrity Growth Engine

The brand has no ambassador programme, no paid placements and no influencer contracts. 'We don't have any ambassador programmes,' O'Malley said. 'We do a lot of reach out internally and we do receive a lot of reach out.' The strategy remains pure gifting.

Megan Fox, Trisha Paytas and Jessica Alba have all purchased directly from the online store without any prior relationship with the founders.

The celebrity effect remains potent. When Vanderpump Rules star Ariana Madix wore Boys Lie to the show's reunion taping after the 'Scandoval' cheating scandal, Nordstrom contacted the founders directly. Revenue had reached $8 million (£6.3 million) by 2022 and the brand was on pace for between $9 million (£7.1 million) and $10 million (£7.9 million) in 2023, CNBC noted. Amanda Batula wore a 2022-era set on a recent season of Summer House and it sold out the following day.

Ariana Grande, Dua Lipa, Kim Kardashian, Kylie Jenner, and Bella Hadid have all been photographed in the brand. None were paid.

Boys Lie Revenue Tops $10M With No Outside Capital

Boys Lie has since surpassed its $10 million (£7.9 million) annual sales target, O'Malley confirmed. The brand now runs 70 per cent direct-to-consumer versus 30 per cent wholesale, with retail partnerships including Revolve, Nordstrom, and Urban Outfitters. The team numbers roughly 14 people. Robinson still designs every collection. They drop 11 out of 12 months, with around 30 SKUs per release, timed to Fridays because, as Robinson put it, 'that's normally people's payday.'

Neither founder studied fashion. Robinson taught herself to design through YouTube tutorials and the pair started with blank garments before moving to fully custom cut-and-sew production. Both made the 'Forbes 30 Under 30' list for Art and Style in 2021.

They received their first acquisition offer last year. When asked on the podcast whether the plan was to sell, Robinson's answer was blunt. 'For the right price.'