Kylie Jenner might be both a billionaire and a high-profile reality TV star, but she’s also a person—a person who’s currently facing a wave of derogatory and inappropriate comments from body-shamers on Instagram. While she’s been celebrating her 22nd birthday in Italy, Jenner’s also been sharing photos from the trip on both her personal account and the official accounts for her many cosmetics and skincare brands. In them, she’s sunning herself in a bikini, joined by a package of her skincare products. Trolls took the photo as permission to make comments about Jenner’s body—specifically, her butt.
Commenters rudely compared Jenner’s curves to a full diaper. “Time to change your diaper, baby girl,” one person said in the comments. “I think your diaper is full,” another commented.
The commentary only went downhill from there. Other users chimed in to question whether Jenner’s body is “natural.” “I remember when you looked like a surfboard,” one said.
One hero emerged from the toxic comment wasteland to set the others in place: “Comments like yours is [sic] what makes people want to do things differently with their bodies,” they wrote.
Of course, one kind comment doesn’t cancel out the damaging effects of several negative ones—and we’ve seen the movie before: Celebrity wears a swimsuit, celebrity decides to take a picture, body-shamers come out of the woodwork to throw in their unnecessary two cents. But frequency doesn’t make this cycle any more excusable.
Nothing about a picture of the media mogul in a swimsuit warrants the comments that body-shamers made (or comments about her body at all), and Jenner doesn’t owe anyone an explanation about procedures she may or may not have had, nor does she deserve gross barbs about her body’s shape on Instagram. If she wants to talk about her body—which she has—she will. Otherwise, let her be.
