So the truth is out about Kylie Jenner. Now let’s all leave her alone.
As E! reports, in a sneak peek of this Sunday’s Keeping Up With the Kardashians, Kylie Jenner goes on the record saying that her very full lips, a physical attribute she’s become well-known for, are the result of “temporary lip fillers.” What are those? They’re a type of cosmetic surgery that entails filling lips with collagen or a sugar solution, temporarily plumping lips, with results lasting for a few months.
Kylie Jenner’s lips have been the source of fascination and speculation for some time now and even sparked the worrisome social media trend #KylieJennerLipChallenge, in which people stuck their lips inside bottles, sucked in, and temporarily plumped up their lips — a challenge that often led to severe bruising and burst blood vessels. Now that we know the truth, we seriously hope this unsafe practice can cease.
Kylie didn’t just come clean about her cosmetic enhancement, she also had an understandable explanation as to why she chose to get lip fillers in the first place. “I have temporary lip fillers, it’s just an insecurity of mine and it’s what I wanted to do.”
We’re bummed to hear that Kylie is insecure about her looks, but when she puts us in her shoes, that stress becomes a little bit more understandable. “I’m just not ready to talk to reporters about my lips yet because everyone always picks us apart,” she states in the clip, and it’s hard to disagree with her. The Kardashians/Jenners are arguably the most picked apart family in America right now, and can you imagine being 17 and in the middle of all of that?
It’s also important to remember that Kylie did not ask to be placed under the lens of the fame microscope. Keeping Up With The Kardashians premiered in 2007 when Kylie was 10 years old. Now, at 17, she’s stood in the spotlight for almost half her young life. She’s still growing up and figuring herself out and her middle and high school years haven’t just been judged by her peers, they’ve been judged by the world. A little empathy and understanding would not be out-of-place here.
When Jenner says “I want to admit to the lips, but people are so quick to judge me on everything, so I might have tiptoed around the truth, but I didn’t lie,” we kind of get it. What would YOU do if the world was obsessing about one of your body parts? It’s an odd situation to find oneself in, and it makes sense that Jenner stayed quiet about the whole thing for a while.
We also applaud Khloe’s big sisterly advice. In the same clip, Khloe says: “Kylie decided to plump her lips and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I think if you’ve done something though, it is right to cop up to it.”
Why do we agree with that? Because SO many young people want to look like Kylie (again, see the #KylieJennerLipChallenge) so admitting that her looks are enhanced can give everyone else more realistic expectations. Honestly, it makes her human.
Now that we know that Kylie, like many celebrities, has enhanced her looks as a means of coping with intense public scrutiny and deep insecurity, that’s explanation enough. We should move on and we should leave her alone. If we’re going to find a teachable moment in all this, let’s find it in the fact that even someone like Kylie Jenner who is widely praised for her looks can still be insecure about her appearance. Let’s also applaud her for doing what she wanted to do and sharing information that she wanted to share. We need to fight against a system that makes women feel badly about the way they look, not bully one young woman who succumbed to the pressures of a messed-up system.
You can check out the clip from the episode below:
