Back in April, Kendall Jenner came under fire for starring in a Pepsi commercial where she joined a protest and handed a cop a peace-making Pepsi. The ad was widely criticized as being a tone-deaf way of addressing police brutality and political unrest. Pepsi almost immediately pulled it from air, although Jenner made no official statement or apology in its aftermath. (The best indicator of Jenner's feelings then was a secondhand report from ET. A source told the outlet that the model and reality TV star was "devastated" by the backlash. "This is the first controversial campaign she has been involved with.")
Jenner didn't address the ad on Keeping Up With the Kardashians, the family's show, either—but that isn't because the crew didn't shoot her or her reaction. In a new oral history of the show with The Hollywood Reporter, Kim Kardashian revealed Jenner just didn't want that particular footage to air. "We're not perfect, but you see these things in the media, like Kendall and [her Pepsi ad that was accused of trivializing Black Lives Matter], where I see her at home crying," Kardashian said. "But in the media she looks another way because she's not addressing it. I'm just like, 'This is wrong. You need to speak up.' She was like, 'I don't ever want to show that footage of me crying.' She was trying to not make excuses or be dramatic, but that was what she was going through at the time."
"I'm the most private one," Jenner said herself in the THR piece. "If there's a moment I don't want anyone to hear, I talk to myself or talk to someone in another room."
Alyssa Bailey is the senior news and strategy editor at ELLE.com, where she oversees coverage of celebrities and royals (particularly Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton). She previously held positions at InStyle and Cosmopolitan. When she's not working, she loves running around Central Park, making people take #ootd pics of her, and exploring New York City.
