Whether it's at the Met Gala, a red carpet or front row at a fashion show, Kylie Jenner rarely puts a sartorial foot wrong, and her multiple appearances at Paris Fashion Week back in January were no exception.
The 26 year old's look for the Jean Paul Gaultier show for example was stunning: a relatively simple champagne mini dress with a corseted bodice and flowing tulle layered over the top. When it came to her make-up, the mother-of-two went for a natural look. At Valentino, she wore a timeless, black strapless dress and shades.
Kylie was photographed and filmed on the red carpet of the Jean Paul Gaultier event in clips that have since gone viral. Such virality is to be expected anytime Kylie - who is currently dating actor Timothee Chalamet - leaves the house, but sadly the commentary surrounding Kylie's new pared-back look was far from positive.
And on a recent episode of Disney+'s The Kardashians, Kylie Jenner opened up about the criticism that she received in January.
Speaking with his sister Kendall Jenner, the 26 year old tearfully shared, 'It’s like, a miracle that I still have confidence, and I can still look in the mirror and think that I’m pretty. After Paris, there was this picture, which, for the first time, I was like, "OK, we’re not gonna wear a lot of makeup"... Then I go, and I don’t wear a lot of makeup and someone catches me in a weird light.
'I hate even having this conversation over and over and over again because it feels like it’s a waste of my breath because I think with me, it’s just never gonna change. I’m just like, why do people think it’s OK to talk about me? I’ve never cried about this before, but I guess it does affect me.'
As well as the above TikTok user who about Kylie looking older than her 26 years, yet another clip of Kylie that was shared to Reddit that was accompanied by a nasty comment which read, 'All that work she had done really aged her. I would also like to say I think she looks beautiful just a lot older than her age.'
This isn't the first time that social media users have accused Kylie Jenner of looking old. After she picked up an award for Brand Innovator of the Year back in November 2023, the comments surrounding her appearance were sadly very similar.
‘Kylie looks so old, she looks older than Kendall, Kylie looks about 32 or 33,’ read the top comment of one video, to near 4,000 likes. ‘Kylie looks so much older than her age,’ another read.
Filler is to blame, according to the trolls and speculators. Kylie opened up about getting filler in 2019 to Paper Magazine. ‘People think I fully went under the knife and completely reconstructed my face, which is completely false,’ she said. ‘I'm terrified! I would never. They don't understand what good hair and makeup and, like, fillers, can really do. It's fillers. I'm not denying that.’
She has since opened up about regretting her cosmetic tweakments too, saying on The Kardashians that she feels uncomfortable about the beauty standards her family have set by endorsing filler or cosmetic surgery with such huge audiences of young, influential fans. ‘I don't want my daughter to do the things I did,’ she said. ‘I wish I'd never touched anything to begin with.’
Her honesty, and emotional development on the subject matter, has been applauded by fans – but that still hasn’t stopped trolls tearing apart her appearance at any opportunity. Nowadays, every time an unfiltered video of Kylie goes viral, the comment section is flooded with debate around how old she looks or whether filler has aged her or not.
It's not unfair to say that beauty experts do warn that excessive use of filler can cause sagging in the face as well as migration, which means the previously fuller skin looks depleted and ‘aged’. Plus, long-term use of filler can also result in muscle weakness in the face. So while filler isn't always a positive device in the hunt for 'perfection', Kylie Jenner does not deserve to be the face of this conversation.
This is a woman who was bullied for her appearance even as a child.
This is a woman who grew up on television, her appearance consistently picked apart even as a child. She was routinely bullied online throughout her teens for being the less attractive Kar-Jenner sister, is it at all surprising then that she chose to seek out cosmetic treatments? It was no doubt validating for her then, being catapulted into the category of most glamorous sister with the most sought-after look, when her lip filler results setting new beauty trends for her generation. But less than a decade later (Kylie first got filler aged 17), her looks have never stopped drawing criticism – with trolls now insistent that she would’ve been better if she was more ‘natural’. Truly, she epitomises the way in which women cannot win when it comes to unrealistic beauty standards - and though many criticise her for setting such standards, she is very much a product of them too.
Indeed, Kendall summarised the situation best whilst comforting her sister during the episode when she said, 'I think that’s a general thing with our family. We’re dehumanized, like, they don’t think that there’s any rules with us.
'Whereas, if you talked the same way you do about us about any other woman, people would come to their defense all day long. But, for some reason, with us, it’s like they think we don’t have any feelings.'