You can’t cancel Kylie Jenner, and she’s proven that at this point. She’s done some questionable things, and some things you might even consider unforgivable, yet she keeps the most loyal and obsessed fan base of all time.

As a reminder, Kylie disappeared for a year with zero explanation to hide her first pregnancy; she got called out by Forbes for faking billionaire status, she blatantly lied about getting lip filler before launching Kylie Cosmetics, and so many other controversial scandals.

Yet, the world’s obsession with Kylie lives on anyway. So let’s talk about it.

Starting with Kylie’s controversial romantic life that maybe would’ve had the potential to ruin any typical celebrity’s career, but since it’s Kylie we’re talking about, her career has continued thriving regardless.

Her romantic scandals never actually destroyed her career.

Kylie’s love life has provided enough material for an entire pop culture documentary. Her relationship with Tyga generated controversy from the beginning, especially based on their age difference and the fact that their relationship went public while Kylie was still extremely young. Rumor has it, they started dating when she was still 17, which is underage. She was the victim there, so it wasn’t a reason for people to cancel her. But yes, still very controversial. Then there was Travis Scott, another relationship that got completely intertwined with celebrity gossip, cheating rumors, breakups, reconciliations, and eventually two children. Even after Kylie and Travis went their separate ways, people continued picking apart every photograph, every Instagram post, every appearance, and every rumor surrounding them. It’s widely believed they ended things because he didn’t want to fully commit to marriage, but that’s never been confirmed.

And now she’s been dating Timothée Chalamet since 2023, which created an entirely different kind of discourse because of how unexpected the pairing initially seemed. They were accused of faking their relationship for PR and attention at the beginning. Yet somehow, instead of any of these relationships destroying Kylie’s popularity, they’ve just consistently generated more interest in her. As of this publication, Kylie and Timothée are still together.

That’s the Kylie phenomenon in a nutshell. Her relationships don’t just become part of her life, because they become more like pop culture events. And even when people are furious with her about being out of touch or coming across as vapid, people are still watching.

In my book, that’s the difference between being hated and being irrelevant. And Kylie has rarely had to worry about the second one.

Her pregnancy disappearance somehow made her MORE famous.

Which might be the ultimate example of Kylie’s aura. When Kylie got pregnant with Stormi, she essentially disappeared from the public’s view. She stopped giving the public the constant access it had become accustomed to; she avoided being photographed, and she kept the pregnancy private until after Stormi was born in February 2018.

And what happened? The world went absolutely insane trying to figure out what she was hiding. People were very curious. Paparazzi hunted her for photographs. Fans analyzed every tiny clue. The less Kylie gave people, the more desperately they wanted information about her.

That’s one of the most intriguing things about her celebrity status. Most people become more famous by giving the public more. Kylie proved she could become more famous by giving the public less.

She temporarily removed herself from the conversation and somehow became the biggest conversation in the world. That is true aura, in my opinion. You can’t manufacture that simply by having millions of followers. Kylie had millions of people wondering where she was when she wasn’t even actively doing anything. And maybe even more importantly, that experience taught her something about controlling public access to herself.

And she’s mastered the art of turning hate into attention.

This is low-key Kylie’s actual superpower, and part of why it’s nearly impossible to cancel her. People criticized her lips, so she built a lip-kit empire. People criticized her appearance, so she turned beauty into her business. People criticized her body after pregnancy, so she snapped back and started posting her revenge body pics. People criticized her outfits, so she kept wearing similar styles. People criticized her relationships, so she kept dating who she wanted to date.

Not every criticism magically became positive publicity for her because some backlash absolutely hurt her image. But Kylie has consistently shown that she can absorb attention from both sides of the spectrum. People don’t have to love Kylie for Kylie to benefit from Kylie being talked about by the world. If someone says, “I hate Kylie Jenner,” and then watches her TikTok, looks at her Instagram, reads an article about her relationship and searches for her new makeup collection, Kylie has still won the attention battle.

Kylie literally monetized the thing people bullied her for.

Kylie’s beauty transformation is one of the clearest examples of celebrity aura becoming actual money. For years, people obsessed over her lips. She initially denied having lip fillers before eventually acknowledging that she had them. Instead of allowing the conversation to permanently embarrass her, she eventually turned lips into the centerpiece of her business.

Kylie Cosmetics launched in 2015 with the Kylie Lip Kit, and the first product reportedly sold out extremely quickly. Coty later described the launch as a direct-to-consumer concept that disrupted the beauty industry. In 2019, Coty announced that it would purchase a 51% stake in Kylie Cosmetics for $600 million, valuing the business at roughly $1.2 billion at the time. So yes, there was absolutely a massive controversy over Kylie’s billionaire status. Forbes later investigated the numbers and concluded that her wealth and business performance had been overstated, ultimately removing her billionaire designation. Kylie denied intentionally misleading Forbes. In my book, this is where the “you can’t cancel Kylie” argument becomes even more interesting. Because… even losing the billionaire title didn’t end her career. She was still Kylie Jenner. Forbes currently estimates her 2025 net worth at $670 million and notes that she still owns an estimated 44% of Kylie Cosmetics after the Coty transaction. The scandal became part of her history, but it didn’t become the end of her story.

Kylie doesn’t flinch at even the most outrageous headlines published about her.

Kylie has a strange relationship with social media because she posts constantly enough to make people feel like they know her, while simultaneously keeping the most important parts of her actual life completely private. Which is a very powerful combination.

You might see Kylie doing her makeup, promoting Kylie Cosmetics, posting her kids, sharing a vacation photo, or uploading selfies, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you know what she’s thinking or doing behind the scenes. She’s become much more selective about what she reveals in interviews, too. Her love life is a perfect example. Kylie used to be much more open about relationships like Tyga and Travis Scott, but she has been considerably more private about Timothée. The mystery helps her because people want what they can’t fully access. I think she understands that if she tells you everything, you eventually get bored. If she leaves some things unanswered, you keep watching. So she doesn’t respond to every rumor. This is another huge reason Kylie is so difficult to cancel.

There are constantly rumors about Kylie. Pregnancy rumors. Breakup rumors. Cheating rumors. Plastic surgery rumors. Friendship rumors. Business rumors. Family drama. Body speculation. You name it. If Kylie responded to every single thing people said about her, she would spend her entire life defending herself. Instead, she lets most of it pass.

And then, every once in a while, she’ll respond when something genuinely gets under her skin. She’s clapped back at people criticizing her hair, trolls questioning Stormi’s paternity, people accusing her of dating Tyga for money, people criticizing her Halloween content, accusations that she copied influencers, body shamers, Ozempic accusations, and even a YouTuber whose prank falsely suggested Travis had cheated on her.

It’s kind of a brilliant strategy because it makes her responses feel like events. When Kylie responds, people pay attention. When she doesn’t respond, the rumor eventually has to fight for oxygen without her. That is very different from allowing every criticism to dictate your behavior. She talked about rumors on the Better Half podcast a few months ago, saying, “I think that I’m so used to people creating their own narrative that I actually have to just laugh about it, and I really don’t care. I just assume people will figure it out eventually, which is what they always do. People think I’m pregnant right now; at least I saw some things, and I’m like, well, I’m not gonna address everything…”

Another reason she’s tough to cancel is that she keeps reinventing herself before people get completely bored.

Kylie also understands something a lot of celebrities don’t: You have to evolve. There was King Kylie. Then came the ultra-glam Kylie. Then came young mom Kylie. Then beauty mogul Kylie. Then the more stripped-back, minimalist version of Kylie. Different businesses. Different fashion aesthetics. Different projects, including a movie with Charli XCX and music with Terror Jr. She’s constantly shifting her visual identity without completely abandoning the Kylie Jenner brand. Arguably, a difficult balance. Some say if you change too much, people don’t recognize you. If you don’t change at all, people decide you’re washed up and boring. Kylie somehow keeps finding new versions of herself for the audience to consume.

Even in 2026, she’s still launching products and collaborations. Her recent Khy footwear collaboration, for example, became part of the content surrounding her courtside appearances with Timothée. She doesn’t have to become a completely different person. She just has to give people a new era. And she always seems down for that.

Beauty is timeless and powerful. It contributes to why it’s tough to cancel someone like Kylie. Her beauty is the staple of her brand — and she’s aware of that.

When I think about aura, the first person who comes to mind is Kylie Jenner because she’s effortlessly chic, glamorous, and beautiful. There’s a reason hundreds of millions of people follow her on social media. And it’s obvious she understands that her appearance itself can function as entertainment.

She doesn’t necessarily need to perform a comedy sketch, sing a song, or teach you how to do something impressive for people to watch her. She doesn’t have to solve problems or provide value to the world aside from her aesthetic. Sometimes she literally just needs to stare into the camera. That is a very specific type of celebrity power. If you’ve built a career around beauty, fashion, and aesthetics and you’ve successfully turned that aesthetic into a recognizable global brand, why wouldn’t you capitalize on it?

Kylie figured out what people were already interested in and built an entire ecosystem around it. She built a brand based on being pretty, so canceling her becomes impossible when you realize her beauty will always be the staple of what she represents.

She also understands that being hated by some doesn’t necessarily matter that much.

This might be the biggest lesson of Kylie’s entire career. There have been “Kylie is over” narratives for years. People have predicted the downfall of the Kardashians for years. People have said Kylie is famous for nothing. People have criticized her family connections, her beauty procedures, her businesses, her relationships, her lifestyle, her wealth, etc. At some point, you have to look at the pattern.

If the same person keeps getting declared “over” and then keeps showing up in headlines, launching products, attending major events, and maintaining an enormous audience, maybe they’re not actually over. In fact, Kylie’s Instagram still sits in the hundreds of millions of followers. Current third-party tracking puts her account at roughly 380 million-plus followers in 2026. Even if some people hate her or unfollow her, millions upon millions of other people are still paying attention.

She has the Kardashian-Jenner ecosystem behind her.

We can’t pretend Kylie exists in a vacuum. She was born into one of the most powerful celebrity families in modern pop culture. Her sisters, mother, and extended family provide a built-in media ecosystem that most celebrities could only dream about. Kim can effortlessly generate a headline. Kendall can generate a fashion moment. Khloé can generate a reality-TV storyline. Kris can turn family attention into business. And Kylie can turn that attention into another product launch.

They’re constantly doing crossover posts as well. That’s an enormous advantage. Plenty of people have famous families, but not everyone turns that access into a personal empire. Kylie and her family successfully did.

Kylie knows how to clap back without letting haters control the narrative.

Some of Kylie’s clapbacks are hilarious because they reveal just how little patience she has for certain criticisms. She’s defended herself against body shamers. She’s addressed people criticizing her appearance. She’s corrected people making bizarre assumptions about her relationships. She’s defended herself against accusations that she copied other creators. She’s even called out Tristan Thompson over his treatment of Khloé.

But the important part isn’t simply that Kylie claps back. It’s that she doesn’t make being offended her entire personality. She can respond and then go right back to being Kylie Jenner. The easiest way to let a hater win is to allow them to completely change your behavior. She usually doesn’t.

Kylie’s stardom has survived because people are fascinated by her — even when they don’t like her.

And I think that’s ultimately why you can’t cancel Kylie Jenner. You can dislike her, criticize her, question her businesses, roll your eyes at another Kylie Cosmetics launch, complain about her lifestyle, and so much more. But no one can force hundreds of millions of people to stop being curious about her.

She doesn’t need universal approval. She thrives on reeling in attention, and she has mastered the art of maintaining attention. Her pregnancy disappearance made people more curious. Her billionaire controversy made people more curious. Her relationships make people curious.

Her beauty routines make people curious. Her business launches make people curious. Her clapbacks make people curious. In other words, her haters are part of the ecosystem.

That’s why I think it’s high-key impossible to cancel this girl. She’s not necessarily the loudest Kardashian-Jenner. She’s not the funniest. She’s not the most accomplished in every category. But she garners attention and curiosity with little to no effort. I kinda don’t think Kylie’s greatest talent is actually makeup, fashion, or even social media. Her greatest talent is staying interesting. In celebrity culture, staying interesting might be the most valuable superpower of all. As much as people might try to cancel Kylie Jenner — and people have been trying for years.