It Doesn't Matter If the Kardashians Are Honest About Their Plastic Surgery

Yahoo

2 days ago

It isn't new for someone to hop on a mic and ask a Kardashian to reveal the specifics of their plastic surgeries—but it is new for one of them to respond in kind. '445 cc, moderate profile, half under the muscle!!!!! silicone!!! garth fisher!!! Hope this helps lol,' is what Kylie Jenner recently commented on a video from a content creator seeking to emulate her second breast augmentation. It was an instantly viral moment—probably because Kylie hadn't even confirmed she'd had a second breast augmentation to begin with. (She previously commented on having her breasts augmented at 19, which she regretted, but had not yet addressed speculation that she'd had them redone in recent years.)
This shortly follows Kris Jenner shocking the world just a couple of weeks ago with a new face that looked decades younger. Though she didn't come right out to reveal what she'd had done, she didn't deny mass speculation that a facelift was the culprit, either. In fact, her representatives confirmed to Page Six that she had 'recent work' done by Steven Levine, MD. They didn't specify what procedure she'd undergone, but seeing as Dr. Levine specializes in SMAS facelifts, the internet put two and two together.
These two incidents alone make for a surprising streak of transparency about cosmetic procedures from the Kardashian family. Though they've all been getting some rather blatant work done during their tenure in the spotlight, most of them have flat-out denied having done so (at least initially) or remained hush until public speculation became a PR liability. For years on end, their consistent denial of being surgically enhanced has been a frustration of both fans and haters, who've felt gaslit and sometimes even exploited by such denials.
In Kylie's case, she infamously denied getting lip filler for years despite obvious and sudden changes in her lip shape and size (she later said in an interview she regrets lying about that). In recent years, Khloé Kardashian has admitted to getting a nose job and Botox but has consistently denied having anything else done, even to her ever-changing body. One time, Allure straight-up asked Kim Kardashian what work she'd had done to her face; she said she had 'a little bit of Botox' and no filler, ever. She denied getting so much as eyelash extensions.
But now that we're getting a taste of what we've been begging for from the Kardashians for 15 years now, does it change anything? Does it help anyone outside of their family? If you ask me, not at all.
I've got mixed feelings about what, if anything, celebrities owe the public when it comes to transparency about how they achieve their appearance, but I tend to veer toward 'that's up to them, even if it goes against my personal morals.' Still, I understand why people crave transparency from the Kardashians specifically; I certainly did until a couple of years ago, when something inside me snapped and I simply ceased to care. In the 2010s, the Kardashian face quickly became the blueprint for today's modern beauty standards (i.e. 'Instagram face')—and they used that blueprint to make a fucking killing.
As you know, the whole time Kylie was in her lip-filler-denial era, she was building a multimillion-dollar cosmetic empire with Kylie Cosmetics Lip Kits, which she mostly promoted by wearing herself. Khloé, perpetually questioned about her denial of undergoing weight loss and other body-enhancement procedures, has sold tons of athleisure wear, hawked fitness supplements, and hosted a weight loss reality show called Revenge Body in 2017. When Kim denied having anything other than Botox in our interview, she was fresh off the launch of her skin-care brand, SKKN By Kim.
'Our demands for the Kardashians' transparency have been misguided all along. What we've actually been seeking all this time is an apology.'
So it's more than fair for people to feel cheated by this family and the impossible beauty standard they not only created but positioned as attainable with products they just so happened to be selling. Although many if not most people could see through the bullshit, the business strategy clearly worked on us, if their million- and billion-dollar net worths are anything to go by. It was all exacerbated, of course, by unyielding media churn. Media outlets are what gave the Kardashians their spotlight in the first place, and the resulting exponential popularity created a cycle wherein any move they made provided major opportunities for clicks, magazine cover sales, and TV ratings—and that media coverage made them even more famous in turn, regardless of whether the engagement was coming from adoring fans or hate-clicks. The Kardashians were inescapable, whether people at home liked it or not.
So we all felt the pressure to keep up with the Kardashians, or at the very least became convinced their snatched faces and physiques were something worth aiming for, even if we understood it was done with lifestyle changes and cosmetic procedures and professional guidance most people don't have enough money or spare time to access.
That pressure remains today, and things have changed too much for transparency to make a difference now. Fifteen years ago, it seems the Kardashians didn't want to risk impeding the sales of their then-burgeoning brands. Now that those brands have endless influence and the family has enough wealth to endure for generations, there's really no risk in admitting to the world that they get plastic surgery.
And it isn't coming from a place of humility or relatability. It's another calculated business strategy. The hyperawareness of plastic surgery in today's social media landscape has simply changed the way the Kardashian family plays their game. Back in the day, getting work done was so taboo that you'd be mortified to see your name appear next to the word 'facelift' in a front-page headline. But now, as the internet heralds certain celebrities' plastic surgery results, revealing the details of one's own procedure(s) provides an opportunity to hold court in a positive light.
Kylie was celebrated for sliding into that comment section with all her breast implant deets. The fan reactions in the same comment section are rife with sentiments like 'Her responding is so king kylie of her,' and 'she's for the girls,' and 'Kylie is the ultimate girls' girl.' The casual way she confirmed the procedure made her seem laid back, as if she'd never cared in the first place if people knew she'd had work done, and the masses ate it up. (Kylie's comment, by the way, has mysteriously disappeared from that post.)
I do think that this transparency is too little, too late. But also, if the Kardashians had been more open about their cosmetic procedures 15, 10, or even 5 years ago, would that have realistically helped us? In retrospect, I don't think it would have changed anything, and the intense beauty standard we all feel pressured to maintain would have remained regardless, what with the ubiquity of front-facing cameras and the pandemic-fueled Zoom boom. At the end of the day, everyone processes information differently. If a Kardashian had copped to a butt lift 10 years ago, some of us might have felt a little relief from the era's massive-ass craze, but chances are plenty of people would have just gotten a butt lift and moved on (and people did that in droves without the confirmation regardless).
I've realized in the past couple of weeks that our demands for the Kardashians' transparency have been misguided all along. On the surface, what people were asking for was a little more honesty from them, but I think what we've actually been seeking all this time is an apology, some kind of recognition that the impossible beauty standard they helped set has hurt us. Closure.
But knowing for sure that Kris got a facelift or that Kylie has breast implants can't and won't resolve the feelings of resentment so many of us have toward them for their impact on how we're expected to present ourselves. And we shouldn't expect the Kardashians—or anyone famous, for that matter—to give us that. Not because they don't owe it to us, but because that closure has to come from within ourselves. If the family's treatment of plastic surgery discourse bothers you on a moral level, the best use of your time and energy is to simply disengage with it, lest you feed their flames with rage-clicks. If you're willing to forgive and forget, that's fine, too. Just take all of this with a hefty grain of salt.
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Originally Appeared on Allure