This week, a photo supposedly taken by Khloe Kardashian’s grandma started circulating on the internet—at least until Khloe’s legal team got to it.
The photo showed Khloe smiling and standing in a bikini, and if you can manage to find the picture online you’ll see she looks quite beautiful. But she doesn’t look like what photos of Khloe in a bikini usually look like.
You know, the absolutely perfect and smooth images, like this:
A lot of people made fun of Khloe’s desperation to get an unedited pic, that is still flattering, taken off the Internet. Especially because she and her sisters have all marketed diet culture and even dared to brand themselves as ambassadors of “body positivity,” and yet they obviously edit their photos. And possibly their bodies.
Well, Khloe has responded to the backlash, posting videos of herself in her bathroom in underwear, showing off her “real” body, as well as a clip from an Instagram Live she did in her work out gear where she stripped down and showed her dimensions:
She also shared a long statement on Twitter about her relationship to sharing images of herself and how people have responded to them over time. She says the unedited photo is beautiful. But:
As someone who has struggled with body image her whole life, when someone takes a photo of you that isn’t flattering in bad lighting or doesn’t capture your body the way it is after working so hard to get it to this point – and then shares it to the world – you should have every right to ask for it to not be shared – regardless of who you are.
She mentioned how she is the Kardashian sister who gets the most criticism when it comes to her looks, even to the point where people have questioned her paternity:
In truth, the pressure, constant ridicule and judgment my entire life to be perfect and to meet other’s standards of how I should look has been too much to bear. “Khloé is the fat sister.” “Khloé is the ugly sister.” “Her dad must not be her real dad because she looks so different.” “The only way she could have lost that weight must have been from surgery.”
Should I go on?
She concludes by saying it’s no one’s business what she chooses to share and whether or not it’s filtered, involves makeup, or whatever.
Yeah, I mean, that’s true. It isn’t anyone’s business! But her message is pretty inconsistent, since many of the beauty standards that are currently in fashion come from her family, and they make money off these images. It’s not really the job of the public to not say anything and be polite as a Kardashian tries to sell us a waist trainer.
Overall, the situation is pretty sad. Khloe doesn’t know she’s in the Matrix and also the one who built it.