When the KarJenners’ hit reality show, Keeping Up With the Kardashians, premiered on E! in 2007, Kylie Jenner — the youngest of the clan — was just 9 years old.
With little say in the matter, Kylie was inevitably thrust into the spotlight as the series took off, and she ended up having some pretty ~memorable~ moments captured on camera.
In fact, the early seasons of KUWTK documented the trials and tribulations of Kylie’s preteen years and adolescence — from her first time experimenting with makeup to several awkward clashes with her parents.
But as she grew older, Kylie — perhaps unsurprisingly — began to appear more and more uncomfortable with her family’s fame-filled lifestyle and, lo and behold, ended up claiming she wasn’t “supposed to be famous” during a 2016 episode.
“I feel like I’ve had anxiety for too long. I feel too much, I care too much, I read too much,” she told elder sister Kim. “Some people are born for this life and some people aren’t. I just know I’m not supposed to be famous.”
A year later, Kylie got candid about the subject once more during a conversation with her then–best friend, Jordyn Woods, in her spinoff series, Life of Kylie. “I don’t want my picture taken, I don’t want people to see what outfit I’m wearing,” she said. “Every time there’s paparazzi I cover my face.”
And in more recent years, Kylie has continued to prove that she’s still not the biggest fan of the spotlight, having famously kept the birth of her first daughter, Stormi, a secret from the entire world — much to the contrary of her sisters, who documented their pregnancies and even gave birth on Keeping Up.
Now 25 and a mom of two, Kylie is a successful billionaire and business mogul. But despite gaining fresh popularity with her emergence on TikTok, Kylie has continued to appear uncomfortable with the limelight.
Not only does the young star rarely attend red carpets alone, instead often accompanied by 4-year-old Stormi, but she virtually never sits down for interviews without her mom, Kris Jenner, by her side.
And so, when an “awkward” clip of Kylie at Paris Fashion Week surfaced online on Thursday, it wasn’t long before fans were reminded of her complicated relationship with the spotlight.
In the now-viral video, which was shared by TikTok user @nettart, Kylie can be seen surrounded by a group of people, including photographers, backstage at the Balmain show.
After quickly embracing creative director Olivier Rousteing, whom she’s friends with, fans said that Kylie — who was seemingly only accompanied by BFF Stassie Karanikolaou — looked “so shy” and “nervous” as she stood with her hands in front of her and peered around.
And when the clip in question was later posted into a Reddit forum, more people agreed with the discourse.
“Kylie looks so shy and introverted when she’s out of her bubble,” one person wrote, while others labeled the entire thing “awkward and uncomfortable.”
But before long, fans considered Kylie’s long-running discomfort with the spotlight and expressed their empathy for the star.
“She has talked about her anxiety. Total evident in these videos,” one person wrote.
Another said, “She’s mentioned before she doesn’t feel like she was meant to be famous. She didn’t really get a choice. She was like 9 when the show started?”
“Dude can we stop making this girl go places,” another person echoed. “Like, clearly she doesn’t feel comfortable. And obviously it has a huge effect on her mental health.”
Meanwhile, some fans said that it was “refreshing” to see such a huge public figure “act just as awkward and uncomfortable” as any other person while suggesting that the clip served as a strong reminder that Kylie is, after all, only human.
“It’s kind of refreshing to see a famous person act just as awkward and uncomfortable as me tbh,” one person wrote. “This makes me like her a teeny bit more idk why,” another agreed.
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