"Yassss!" she screams. "Who's the lucky bitch?""Is that suede or leather?" I ask."Lambskin," Bobby says. "Expensive lamb.""We keep it real here," Bonelli says. "I have a trucker mouth. I run around naked. I. Do. Not. Give. A. Shit."Bonelli credits her rebel attitude to her father, an eccentric painter whom she describes as wild. Growing up with divorced parents, she bounced between Valencia and Encino in southern California. Everyone practiced an art form. Her great-grandmother painted, her little brother went to architecture school and became an engineer, and her cousins went on to become professional writers."[Artists have] a specific personality," Bonelli says. "It's been beneficial to my career that I've known how to take care of an artist." Or as Khloe Kardashian puts it: "All true artists have a little crazy going on."Read More: This Feminist Magician Wants Women in Magic to Lean In
By the eighth grade, Bonelli wanted to drop out to study horror movie makeup. Her parents despised the idea, but she continued to ask them. As with Bonelli's wild artistic father, nobody could stop her creative urges. Her parents relented and let her take an esthetician course at night when she was 16. In class, Bonelli met a trans teenager in the midst of her transition who changed Bonelli's life forever."She would always be putting a shit ton of makeup on and giv[ing] me advice about boys," Bonelli says in an email. "I was so fascinated because she was seven-feet tall and was the most feminine creature I had ever met."Bonelli started studying trans women and drag queens' makeup techniques. "I've taken notes on drag everything and anything," she says. "For me that's where I first saw transformational makeup." She credits the LGBTQ community with her success and for giving her the skill she uses on a daily basis.I've taken notes on drag everything and anything. For me that's where I first saw transformational makeup.
Like on a horror set, Bonelli transformed people's faces at the Playboy Mansion. She enhanced women to make them look like glamor creatures from another planet; when girls go under Bonelli's brush, they look like they've gone under the knife. (She says all her clients have had tabloids start rumors about them getting nose jobs after she's done their faces.)I help people with their anxiety walking down the stage with the nose jobs I give them. It's a mask.
"The first time I met Kris was on a shoot that I was doing for Kim Kardashian," Bonelli remembers. "I was like, 'Who is that?' I didn't know who [Kim] was—this was before the show—and Kris Jenner was telling me step by step how to do [Kim's] lips, and it was amazing. She has not changed at all. She's so epic, literally my inspiration in life. I always tell her kids, 'I don't care about you. It's all about your mom.'"Bonelli became enamored with Kris and started working for her and her daughters, doing their makeup for their reality show, promotional appearances, and other business endeavors. Since the days when the girls dated football players, Bonelli has helped the Kardashians with looks that have been copied in an endless stream of YouTube tutorials.On reality show shoot days, Bonelli does makeup from 4 AM to 7 AM. Doing Kris's makeup, she witnessed the momager start doing business calls at 4 AM when New Yorkers start working at 7 AM East Coast time. "I've heard for the last eight years the way [Kris] speaks to people and gets shit done," Bonelli says. She imitates Kris: "You don't have five million dollars? Well, go find it.""The next day, they're crawling back," Bonelli says. "I was never raised with an idol; I was never like, 'Oh my god, Britney Spears!' I wasn't raised that way. If I had an idol, I would say [Kris is] my idol because she's like a super woman in all areas of life. She's just really brilliant."[Kris] is so epic, literally my inspiration in life. I always tell her kids, 'I don't care about you. It's all about your mom.'
As she collaborated with Kris and the other Kardashians, she started traveling with them. Kris and her daughters became her closest friends. Khloe Kardashian says they grew to trust Bonelli with their private secrets. "Joyce is not only so incredibly talented but she is incredibly loyal," Khloe says. "Glam time is such a personal time, and you want only people who are trusted and who inspire you around you at those vulnerable times. Joyce is always so positive, motivating, energetic, trusting."At one point, Kim invited Bonelli to live with her because she had purchased a giant home and was living alone. "Of course I was doing her glam everyday, so she loved that," Bonelli says. Every day, Kim woke up at 4 AM to work out. According to Bonelli, she would come into her room and scream, "Get up!" Bonelli's response: "Oh hell no! I'm not about the workouts, bitch!""Sometimes I went, but she just doesn't stop," Bonelli says. "Seeing it firsthand, she's just very, very inspirational. However you want to apply it to your job, whatever it may be, that whole family is very inspirational. You can't be lazy if you want that kind of success. That's why I admire them—their hard work."The fact that they're so into lashes—especially Kylie these days—that is definitely a nod to drag queens.
Bonelli says she loves working with the Kardashians, because they're also working mothers—they understand her busy life. On set, the Kardashians bring their kids, and Bonelli takes Zeppelin to work."[Zeppelin's] friends with a lot of my clients' kids," Bonelli says. "He's just grown up with them. That's such a blessing.""Joyce has been in our family for almost eight or nine years," Khloe Kardashian says. "I say she's in our family because she literally is like our sister."Last year, Bonelli traveled with the family to France for Kim and Kanye's wedding. On the flight back, their section of the plane had an empty seat—Rob Kardashian famously skipped the wedding—so a stranger named Ben Taverniti took the seat. He sat in awe watching Bonelli hand the Kardashian girls makeup. Eventually, the two started talking. He told Bonelli about Hudson Jeans, where he works as a designer, and his passion clothing line project called Unravel. Like a commercial version of Yoko Ono meeting John Lennon, the two artists instantly connected over their respective commercial art forms. Today, they've been dating for over a year.Their relationship comes at a crossroads for Bonelli. For years, her income has come exclusively from celebrity clients. While other "makeup experts" has reveal their secrets on YouTube, she has kept her skills private. (Why would her clients pay her well if she gave away the goods online?) Until very recently, she didn't even employ a manager, and she has enjoyed influencing Americans' makeup trends from behind the scenes, like a shadow government. (Companies regularly call her into trend meetings.)"I don't know a lot of makeup artists that make a million dollars a year either, without a product line," Bonelli says. "For a long time part of the strategy was that no one would know how much money I was making—I drove a shitty car for the longest time. Now it's a different time, and I make money off of, just like everyone else, the paid posting." In the upcoming months, Bonelli plans to take her brand to the next level and become a public face. She has hired a manager and has an app in development, which she believes will disrupt the beauty industry.For a long time part of the strategy was that no one would know how much money I was making—I drove a shitty car for the longest time.
"It's really going to change the game in a whole other way," Bonelli says. "It's going to make a lot of different strategic parts of the industry obsolete."Kim has advised her with her branding, Bonelli says. She remembers when she set up her Instagram she considered calling the account "Glam BTS," and she says Kim told her, "You can't do something funny, you're always trying to do something funny or whatever, but it has to be your name to brand yourself."As our conversation ends, the lights from the mansions in the Beverly Hills shine into Bonelli's window, illuminating the room. Bonelli is excited for what the future holds, but most of all, she wants to continue transforming celebrities faces—sculpting people into characters, as Michelangelo did, as she dreamed of doing the first time she saw The Munsters."It's just an exciting time for me and the pieces coming together in different projects for a lot of my friends, whether they're designers, or my clients, celebrities with huge brands," Bonelli says. "I love being a piece of everyone's empire."It's really going to change the game in a whole other way. It's going to make a lot of different strategic parts of the industry obsolete.