Kendall Jenner Says She “Cried Endlessly for Days” Over Online Comments About Her Acne
For Kendall Jenner, experiencing regular breakouts packed a double whammy: Besides having to deal with the actual acne, which the supermodel recently called “debilitating,” living her life in the spotlight also meant she had to face judgment for that acne from strangers on social media. In her new cover interview for the March 2019 issue of Allure, Jenner opened up about how simultaneously facing down those trolls and building up her own self-confidence made her “stronger.”
“I mean, it’s something that I look at myself in the mirror every day and see. Like, I don’t want it there, but you have to deal with what you have right in front of you, and I had to deal with it,” Jenner said. She went on to describe the Internet’s reaction to her walking the red carpet at the 2018 Golden Globes—which she called “probably a once in a lifetime thing”—with acne visible through her makeup. “I went and I was super excited about it, and I’m not gonna let something so little (and big) as acne stop me,” she said. “I was feeling good about myself, and then when people say mean things I’m like, ‘I know I have a zit. I know I’m breaking out. You guys don’t have to keep pointing it out. I obviously see that, but let me live.’”
Despite putting up that tough facade, Jenner admitted, “I have cried endlessly for days because of things people have said to me, and I’ve had to become stronger through it. I mean, don’t get me wrong: I am not superhuman. I definitely feel, and the things people say online are very hurtful. You also just have to live your life and not pay attention to it. I think it can get pretty unhealthy if you really are deep in it and paying attention to it all the time. I think that that’s what can really mess you up.”
Fortunately, with the help of her longtime skincare guru Christie Kidd and her new partnership with Proactiv, the 23-year-old is now feeling better than ever about her skin, she told Allure. “[My acne] started clearing up for me probably when I was 17 [when] I was modeling a lot, then it all kind of came back when I was about 21 again—really bad, and that’s not a nice feeling. I get really easily stressed out, but there’s obviously a lot of factors to it. It’s a fact that, as women, our bodies change, so that includes hormonally and everything, so for me, I might just be in that cycle,” she said. “I’ve had an ongoing battle with it, so it’s a constant thing for me, but I’m in a good place right now, which is awesome.”
So “awesome,” in fact, that she recently took to Instagram to share a few makeup-free photos with the world. “I didn’t think I’d see the day where I would feel confident posting a makeup-free picture. My goal is to open up a dialogue around skin positivity,” she wrote alongside the pictures, which she posted as part of her Proactiv partnership.
Related: Does Kendall Jenner Actually Use Proactiv? The Internet Thinks Not
