First, we know that there are far more important issues in the world, both personal and global, than Kim Kardashian’s cellulite. But, never-the-less we decided to applaud the example Kardashian set when images showed up online of the reality star’s famous posterior with - gasp! - visible cellulite.
And that was just the beginning of our journey.
For anyone who has stressed over their cellulite by not wearing certain outfits, or avoiding the beach, the recent body-positive movement and increasing numbers of celebrities who are willing to accept their cellulite, is a welcome relief and a shot of encouragement.
So we applauded last May when images of a bikini-clad Kim appeared in the media with clearly visible cellulite. There it was, one of the most recognized celebrities of all, one whose fame has been built largely on her butt, showing that, yes, she too, in addition to 90% of all women, has cellulite.
As happy as we were about Kim’s cellulite ‘coming out’ images, we were equally as disappointed when, not long after our post, Kardashian claimed the images were photoshopped to make her cellulite look worse. In other words, she still felt cellulite was unacceptable, which is interesting because we could swear we found at least one of the images in question on her Instagram account, though, if we did, it’s since disappeared.
More recently, Kardashian is said to ‘freak out’ over the cellulite shots in a trailer for the upcoming season of ‘Keeping up With the Kardashians’.
Here’s one quote from the clip.
“I don’t get it, like I literally don’t look like this.”
So the journey has gone from Kardashian (potentially) sharing photos of her cellulite on her own social media accounts, to saying that the cellulite was photoshopped to make it look ‘worse’, to claiming that she ‘literally’ doesn’t look like this’.
Kim, the opportunity to make so many millions of women feel better about their cellulite was in your hands, all you had to do is own it. Becoming an icon of beauty is an amazing achievement, but it’s an empty one in the absence of leadership and empathy.