Kylie Jenner’s success graph is one for the books. While many still primarily see her as a socialite, fact is that Kylie has managed to cash in on the curiosity surrounding her, erecting an enviable beauty business in record time. That being said, everything, specially fame, comes with a price. In the latest episode of The Kardashians which aired on June 20, Kylie can be seen breaking down in front of her sister Kendall Jenner while referencing how extensively her physical appearance has been scrutinised by the public. “It’s a miracle I still have confidence and can still look in the mirror and still think I’m pretty”, said the beauty mogul. Though she has self-admittedly become “numb” to the constant barrage of negative opinions directed at her, “I guess it does affect me”, she reasoned. Let’s take a look at some of Kylie’s top controversies.
As wrong as it sounds, this is a very real thing that happened. For the December 2015 issue of Interview Magazine, Kylie featured on the cover seemingly strapped to a wheelchair, striking a robotic pose and expression. Senior editor at Interview Magazine at the time of the shoot, Chris Walace, in a byte to Mashable UK reasoned that the idea behind the pictures was to portray Kylie as “someone who is in control of her image”.
The disbelief and outrage over the photoshoot’s ‘aesthetic’ was soon followed by accusations of Kylie being ‘ableist’ and appropriating the wheelchair to repurpose it for fashion.
For it’s 2019 Spring edition, Forbes put Kylie Jenner front and center, tagging her as the youngest ‘self-made billionaire’. Kylie being decorated with the magnanimous tag just did not sit right with much of the internet considering how her business taking off can largely be credited to the kind of fame and public attention she has been exposed to since her childhood, something which gave her an undeniable head start.
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As a matter of fact, Kylie somewhat agreed to this in a New York Times interview. While she does believe she made her finances on her own because she does not have any inherited money, she did concede to the fact that she had lots of help at her disposal along with a huge platform to launch her products. Forbes too eventually addressed the backlash, clarifying how ‘self-made’ in their dictionary refers to someone who has not inherited some or all of their business. People still aren’t too convinced though.
Kylie turned 22 on August 10, 2019. To celebrate her birthday in her own unique style, she announced the launch of her next money-themed line. Right away there were many who jumped into deliberation over Kylie just attempting to finds ways to flaunt her money. However, a peek at the names of some of the shades had the internet up in arms at how tone-deaf the new line was. For context, some of the names of the shades were ‘Work for It’, ‘On a Budget’ and ‘Money Ain’t Everything’.
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As a matter of fact a line from the 1996 film Swingers — “You’re so money baby”, repackaged as marketing was interpreted as Kylie taking a dig at her followers for having ‘zero money’. Reason being that the ‘so’ was written out as ‘$0’.
‘Black Summer’ or the deadly Australian bush fires which gripped the continent between 2019 and 2020, rightfully occupied much of the social media pleas at the time for help and donations, both from the public as well as celebrities. Kylie too was among the big names drawing attention to the crippling effect on the Australian wildlife. However, any goodwill she may have accrued with this was quashed with her Instagram story where she can be seen flaunting her mink fur slippers from Louis Vuitton.
An X comment reacting to the situation read, “Kylie posting a story about the AU fires then a story of her mink LV slippers is my favorite new definition of tone deaf”. Another added, “Not @ kylie posting about the animals being killed in that fire, only to post a pic in real mink LV slides”.
In 2022, X account @CelebJets which tracked celebrity flight routes, revealed how Kylie had opted to take a 17-minute flight ride over California to avoid a 45-minute car drive through the roads. The rather unnecessary choice Kylie made was of course blasted by the internet. However, the real cincher in this situation was her posting a picture of herself and then-partner, rapper Travis Scott in front of their private jets with the incredibly provocative caption “you wanna take mine or yours ?”.
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The internet does not appear to be in any mood to go easy on Kylie. Still accusing her of being tone-deaf in her reaction where she wants the public to cut her some slack, many are of the opinion that Kylie only has herself to blame when it comes to her woes. A riled up X user commented, “Kylie Jenner has been selling teenage girls a distorted view of reality with her diet teas and face/lip injections for 10 years, but now she’s crying over it??? This girl made millions off destroying women’s self esteem and now we’re suppose to feel sorry for her??? Nope!!!!”
Another added, “Maybe if her and her family didn’t spend decades perpetuating unrealistic beauty standards, she wouldn’t have these issues 🤷♂️”. Taking a more neutral stance, another X user commented, “At this point anyone who wants to be a celebrity should sign a paper that says they know ppl will be talking about them! You can’t have 400 million followers and expect each one to love everything about you”.