Kendall Jenner Defended By Karl Lagerfeld, Designer Claims He Didn’t Know She Was A Celebrity: Kendall ‘Will Faint’ If She Meets Beyonce! [Video]
Kendall Jenner has taken a lot of flak about how she became a successful supermodel so quickly, with many people saying it was because of her reality star status. During an interview with Harper’s Bazaar, however, designer Karl Lagerfeld went on record to say that he hired Kendall Jenner because she deserved it — and he had no idea who she was.
Admitting that he doesn’t watch Keeping Up with the Kardashians because the show reportedly doesn’t air in France, Lagerfeld said that he “didn’t even know she was in it,” adding that he “saw it when it was only her sisters and she was, like, a baby.” So, when Kendall landed her first Chanel runway with Karl’s blessing based purely on her own skills, the anonymity was “so refreshing to me,” adding in the Harper’s Bazaar interview “I love that” Lagerfeld had no clue she was on a famous television show.
In past interviews, Kendall confirmed that when she started modeling, being a Keeping Up with the Kardashians star actually made it harder for her to land modeling gigs because nobody took her seriously. During a 2014 interview, Kendall confessed that “[p]eople think that this [success] just came to me,” admitting that “it didn’t.”
In fact, Kendall Jenner says she had to work harder than the other models because her celebrity status “has almost worked against me.” At the time, reports surfaced that the other supermodels would bully Kendall since they “worked so hard to get a spot on the runway” and thought that Kendall was able to skip the line by shelling out money for the spot.
Even legendary designer Calvin Klein has gone on record slamming models with large social media following like Kendall Jenner. Speaking to the Savannah College of Art and Design, Klein told the audience that hiring a model like Jenner, who is the face of the Calvin Klein brand, “is not the kind of thing I would have done, even today.”
“Now, models are paid for how many followers they have. They’re booked not because they represent the essence of the designer, which is what I tried to do — they’re booked because of how many followers they have online,” Klein concluded.
it's been more than 30 seconds so @kendalljenner has a new magazine cover https://t.co/sWAlLxb1HP pic.twitter.com/Do9lg7OI8e
— MTV Style (@MTVstyle) May 15, 2016
The Harper’s Bazaar interview with Karl Lagerfeld shows, however, that Kendall Jenner isn’t just hired because of her 58 million followers on Instagram — it’s because she actually has the modeling chops to represent brands on the runway.
In the same interview, Kendall got honest about her reputation as a private person and says that she doesn’t make new friends easily — and she’s perfectly fine with that. Jenner is notoriously private about her personal life, and Jenner admitted that she’s “not super open to new people,” adding that she has “a small group of people I trust.”
Leonardo DiCaprio and Kendall Jenner make waves at the Vanity Fair #Cannes party
https://t.co/b7BWXRXZiW pic.twitter.com/h2exLrtY2C— VANITY FAIR (@VanityFair) May 14, 2016
Jenner, who recently revealed that she’s a Christian, confessed that she’s “very intuitive” about people and is “good at feeling out how people are, like if they have bad intentions.” Although she wishes she were as open and able to make new friends like her sisters Kim and Khloe, Kendall feels “it’s for the best” that she’s so “closed off,” although the personality trait “annoys me.”
However, there’s one person Kendall would love to meet: Beyonce. Admitting she’s a confirmed member of the Beyhive, Jenner revealed that she’s “100 [percent] a huge fan of Beyoncé. If I see her, I will faint.”
Although she met the “Formation” singer once before, she got “really nervous and quiet” during the meet-and-greet. If she sees Beyonce again, she plans to “just shut up and bow down,” Jenner confided.
What do you think? Did Kendall Jenner start getting modeling gigs because of her reality star status, or does she really deserve to be on the runway? Leave a comment below!
[Photo by Andreas Rentz/Getty Images]
