40+ Kardashian-Jenner Family Controversies and Scandals We Forgot About

Let’s start off where it all began — with Kim Kardashian’s leaked tape. Back in the early 2000s, a young Kim organized celebrity closets including those of Paris Hilton, and singer Brandy. However, it was Kim’s private tape with Brandy’s brother, Ray J, that ended up catapulting her to the spotlight.

Kim has said, “I’m not naïve to that fact that that’s pretty much how I was introduced to the world […] I felt like I really had to work 10 times harder to get people to see the real me.”

There have been plenty of relationship scandals when it comes to the Kardashian-Jenners, including the coupling of youngest sibling Kylie and rapper Tyga. When Tyga appeared on the scene, he had already had a child with Kim’s former friend, Blac Chyna. More importantly, the pair met at Kendall’s 16th birthday, making Kylie a minor.

Tyga and Kylie announced they were dating in 2015 when she turned 18, but people were pretty creeped out by the couple’s age difference. The pair finally called it quits in 2017.

When the Kardashian sisters first appeared on the scene back in 2007, Khloé was bullied in the media for her appearance. Since then, fans have watched the star transform herself physically, both through extensive exercise and cosmetic surgery. In fact, Khloé even hosts a reality makeover show called Revenge Body that’s all about looking good to get back at someone (sigh).

In recently posted pictures, fans have complained that Khloé looks “unrecognizable.” The family has all had lots of work done, but Khloé is the most extreme case.

When Caitlyn Jenner went through her public transition, it was an absolutely huge controversy for the Kardashian-Jenner family. Tabloids were constantly snapping pics of the transforming star, and the family was continually asked about their thoughts and feelings on the situation.

Caitlyn’s transition was such a huge story that the family had two special episodes of Keeping Up With the Kardashians to deal with it. Then, Caitlyn sat down with Diane Sawyer and starred in a front-page Vanity Fair article.

When we talk about the Kardashian-Jenners, we tend to gloss over the only man in the family — Rob Kardashian. While Rob appeared on early seasons of KUWTK, even living with Khloé and Lamar while they were married, he soon disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

Rob’s storylines are often about his weight gain, implied mental health issues, and difficulty living in the public eye like his sisters. Considering he was second place on Dancing With the Stars, it’s strange that the celeb has spent years out of the spotlight.

Who could forget about the multi-year feud between popstar Taylor Swift and Kimye? We all know where this started — with Kanye West jumping on stage to interrupt Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the VMAs.

Kanye and Taylor Swift continued to fight it out in public for years, eventually having another issue over lyrics in Kanye’s song “Famous.” The whole scandal culminated in Kim releasing a private phone call between the celebs, and Swift releasing her snake-themed Reputation album.

Several years ago, Kourtney Kardashian started seeing a new therapist who helped her to reevaluate her priorities. This led to the eldest Kardashian sibling stepping back from filming KUWTK as much, which led to Kim and Khloé criticizing her work ethic.

Eventually, in a 2019 episode, the sisters sat down with production to discuss the issue. Unfortunately, this led to a physical fight between Kourtney and Kim, which itself led to the show being shut down for a week. Yikes!

In one of the most shocking Kardashian-Jenner incidents ever, Kim Kardashian was robbed in her hotel room during Paris Fashion Week in 2016. The celeb was bound and gagged by five thieves dressed as police officers, and she thought that she was going to die. They ended up running off with $10 million of jewelry.

The Paris robbery caused a social media storm, and some pretty unsavory accusations. Interestingly, the traumatic event caused Kimye to start trying for another child.

Who could forget the media storm over Kylie Jenner’s lips? The youngest sibling had thin lips as a child, and suddenly started sporting a massive pout. While she didn’t cop to it at first, Kylie eventually admitted to getting lip injections. Shortly after, she made a fortune selling lip kits.

In a 2017 episode of spin-off Life of Kylie, the reality star revealed that she was insecure because an ex-boyfriend once told her, “I didn’t think you would be a good kisser because you have such small lips.”

Viewers first met Scott Disick on KUWTK as Kourtney’s wild, younger boyfriend. The New Yorker was controversial straight away, and in the second season, Kourt accused him of cheating after finding texts on his phone. They got back together, Kourt got pregnant, and suddenly, they were parents.

Three kids later and the couple split in 2015 when pictures surfaced of Scott with ex-girlfriend Chloe Bartoli on a yacht in the South of France. The couple now co-parent, but haven’t rekindled their romantic relationship.

Lots of the Kardashian Jenner scandals are caused by the family’s cultural insensitivity. While the elder Kardashian siblings are part-Armenian, the younger two are white. This might not seem particularly relevant, but it is when it comes to insensitive hairstyles and fashion choices.

When Kendall Jenner stepped out sporting cornrows after a vacation to Jamaica, onlookers were quick to point out that they weren’t really for her. Protective styles like this are for afro-textured hair, not reality stars turned models. Sorry Kenny, move along.

When it comes to Kanye West and Canadian rapper Drake, there’s a lot of beef. In the beginning, Drake said that Kanye was one of the biggest inspirations in his career, but then it started getting messy. The two started dissing each other in tracks and interviews, and then took to social media.

Eventually, Kim was brought into the whole mess. Kanye felt that Drake had referenced his wife on “In My Feelings,” and then lost his temper when his rival followed Kim on Instagram.

Here’s another Kardashian scandal from the early days. While Kim’s second and third marriages were big news, she doesn’t speak much about her first. Kim Kardashian ran off to elope with music producer Damon Thomas when she was only 19 years old.

The couple divorced in 2003 amid claims of domestic abuse. Kim has said, “You think you know so much about love when you’re really young and you look back later and probably realize it is not what you thought it was.”

While the Kardashian-Jenners are famous for putting it all out there, Kylie Jenner decided to do the opposite when she was expecting daughter Stormi. Between 2017 and 2018, the star hid her pregnancy from the world and stayed tucked away inside her mansion.

While the world speculated on what was going on, they didn’t actually find out until Kylie released a video one week after Stormi was born. She has since said that staying inside prepared her for lockdowns and quarantine!

When it comes to being culturally insensitive, Khloé Kardashian is up there. No matter how many times the star is called out for embracing certain hairstyles or fashion choices, she just keeps them coming.

This particular scandal happened back in 2014 when Khloé posted a picture of herself wearing a feathered Native American headdress to Instagram. These items have cultural and spiritual significance to their own communities — they’re not just dress-up toys for reality stars! Kylie also posted a picture of herself wearing the item.

Kardashian-Jenner fans were truly shook when the news of Rob Kardashian and Blac Chyna dropped. Seriously, we’re still not over it. The model posted a picture of herself and a tattooed arm in 2016, and it was soon revealed that the couple was engaged and expecting. Ah!

Of course, Blac Chyna already had connections with the Kardashians. She had been pals with Kim but that fizzled out when her ex and baby daddy Tyga started dating youngest sibling Kylie.

As we’ve hinted, the Kardashian-Jenners are particularly bad when it comes to being culturally insensitive. These women just want to do what they want to do, and they don’t really seem to take it in when people get upset or offended by their choices.

Kylie was hit with accusations of blackface when she posted these heavily altered images of herself in 2015, captioned with, “What I wish I looked like all the time.”

Khloé Kardashian and NBA player Lamar Odom had a whirlwind relationship that sadly caused the reality star a world of pain. The pair met and married within a month, and landed their own spin-off, Khloé and Lamar. When things started to go south for the couple, Khloé kept it to herself.

Eventually, fans learned that Odom had cheated on Kardashian multiple times. Later, when he collapsed in Nevada, Khloé delayed their divorce so she could make his medical decisions and care for him.

While he’s no longer an official member of the Kardashian-Jenner clan, Kanye West caused plenty of controversy during his time with the family. In 2020, during what seemed to be a public breakdown, the rapper started ranting in the TMZ offices about sensitive political subjects.

This led to a TMZ staffer standing up to debate West, which resulted in a viral video. During the aftermath of this episode, Kanye West called his mother-in-law Kris Jenner, “Kris Jon Un.”

After 23 years of marriage, Kris and Caitlyn Jenner officially called it quits in 2013. At the time, they seemed to be on good terms, though viewers had watched their marriage disintegrate for years on KUWTK.

After Caitlyn’s public transition in 2015, the Kardashians were publicly supportive of their step-parent. However, once Caitlyn started speaking unkindly about Kris, things were over. The pair have been photographed together several times, but they clearly no longer have a friendly relationship.

Kim Kardashian’s most infamous relationship is her 72-day marriage with NBA player Kris Humphries. The couple first met in 2010, and made their relationship official in 2011. Though Kim’s family members and fans could tell this wasn’t a match made in heaven, the reality star pushed ahead with an extravagant televised wedding that same year.

Just two months after they said “I do,” fans watched as Kim broke down on the family’s flagship reality show. The ensuing divorce lasted longer than the marriage.

In 2021, Kylie Jenner shocked fans when she publicized a GoFundMe fundraiser for her former makeup artist. Considering the star’s immense personal wealth, people thought it was pretty scandalous for Kylie to ask anyone for money for anything. Why didn’t she just give her friend the funds?

Eventually, Kylie clarified that she had donated $5,000 to get the fund to its goal of $10,000. The star claimed she shared the link to gain awareness and raise more funds.

We’ve already seen Kylie Jenner’s blackface controversy, so let’s take a look at Kim’s. When the celeb posted a selection of promotional images for KKW Beauty in 2017, onlookers noticed that her skin was particularly dark. As a result, Kim was accused of blackfishing.

In response, Kim said, “I would obviously never want to offend anyone […] I was really tan when we shot the images, and it might be that the contrast was off […] No one brought that to our attention. No one mentioned it.”

Kanye West has long spoken of running for President of the USA, and in 2020 he made that dream a reality. Unfortunately (or fortunately), Kanye didn’t really organize an actual political campaign, but he did stand up and say a bunch of really controversial stuff.

During Kanye’s campaign speech in South Carolina, he revealed that he and Kim had considered not having their first child, North. As a result, Kim was extremely upset that Kanye had discussed such personal matters with the public.

Now, here’s a really big Kardashian-Jenner scandal. Back in 2017, when the world was getting to grips with the Black Lives Matter movement, Kendall Jenner starred in a particularly tone-deaf commercial for Pepsi. In the ad, Jenner quashes a clash between protestors and police by giving an officer a can of Pepsi.

It basically tried to suggest that Kendall could cure racism with a Pepsi. People felt that the commercial trivialized really important issues, and eventually, Pepsi pulled the commercial and apologized.

The world reeled when Forbes magazine declared that Kylie Jenner was the youngest self-made billionaire in the world. To begin with, people didn’t love the idea that Kylie is “self-made,” considering she’s been on a reality show since she was 10 years old.

That’s the sort of platform most people never get. On top of that, Forbes later retracted their claim, saying that the Kardashians-Jenners had gone to “unusual lengths” to present Kylie as richer than she was.

Before Kim Kardashian’s shapewear line Skims was Skims, it was Kimono. That’s right, our Kimmy tried to name her new company after the national garment of Japan, and it didn’t exactly go well. In fact, this scandal caused so much controversy that the mayor of Kyoto wrote to the star asking her to change her trademark.

It turns out that picking words that sound like your own name isn’t the greatest business strategy. Due to public pressure, Kim eventually switched the name to Skims.

Oh dear, oh dear. For a family that are regularly accused of cultural appropriation and blackfishing, this ill-advised snap was a terrible idea. Also, holding your eyes to look like a different racial group is a terrible idea in general.

Scott Disick posted this picture of himself and Penelope while they dined at a Japanese restaurant in 2019. Naturally, angry onlookers argued that Scott should have explained to his daughter that it’s not respectful to imitate another race.

We have to laugh at Kendall Jenner’s Proactiv announcement, because Kris Jenner made the whole thing much worse than it should have been. In 2019, the momager tweeted that Kendall would be sharing her “most raw story” ever that night.

Considering many people have speculated about Kendall’s romantic preferences, fans were expecting a serious revelation. However, Kendall’s most raw story was that she has bad skin and would now be hawking Proactiv products. On top of all this, most people didn’t believe the star actually used the brand.

When the rest of the world was staying inside to stop the spread of a new contagious virus, Kim Kardashian found a loophole to enjoy her 4oth birthday. For the big event, Kardashian flew her friends and family to a private island, after making sure they’d all had multiple health screens and time to quarantine.

The last thing the world wanted to see at this difficult time was a bunch of celebs partying on their own private island. Not cool, Kim.

To use the words of one angry Twitter user, Khloé Kardashian has “appropriated just about everything there is to appropriate.” Here, Kardashian wears yet another protective hairstyle for a hair texture that she just doesn’t have.

The reality star posted a picture of herself wearing Bantu knots, captioned with the words, “bantu babe.” Unsurprisingly, nobody was pleased with this content, and the star eventually deleted the post and reuploaded it with a different caption. Same story, different day.

After her tumultuous marriage to Lamar Odom and a string of unsuccessful relationships, viewers were delighted to see Khloé Kardashian get together with professional basketball player Tristan Thompson. The star was glowing on episodes of KUWTK, and eventually announced that she was pregnant with her first child.

Unbelievably, when Khloé was nine months pregnant, videos surfaced of Tristan with multiple other women. Despite this huge betrayal, Khloé allowed the athlete to be in the room when his daughter was born.

When Kim Kardashian appeared on the front cover of Paper magazine in 2014, people took notice. The shoot — headlined with “Break the Internet” — was with photographer Jean-Paul Goode, and birthed a million memes.

Whilst people took issue with Kim’s full frontal nudity for this shoot, the bigger issue were the racial undertones. The shoot was based on Goode’s previous work, which is undeniably problematic. People also drew similarities between the picture and a South African woman named Saartjie Baartman who was displayed throughout Europe as a sideshow.

Over the past several years, Kanye West has been on his own spiritual journey. The rapper created Sunday Service, a Christian service that features a choir dressed in Yeezy, conducted by West. Eventually, the rapper struck up a relationship with televangelist Joel Osteen, and spoke at his megachurch.

In his talk at Lakewood Church in Houston in 2019, West made various outlandish claims. He stated that “the devil stole all the good producers,” and that he is “the greatest artist that G-d has ever created.”

Youngest siblings Kendall and Kylie have had several clothing lines throughout their careers. However, their self-named line Kendall + Kylie was supposed to be a high fashion line rather than a fast fashion endorsement. Unfortunately for them, they had issues straight out of the gate.

In 2017, Kendall and Kylie sold a range of vintage t-shirts with images of late rappers Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur on them. Foolishly, they hadn’t got permission from the artists’ estates, leading to some strong words from their families.

It’s hard for us to believe that Khloé Kardashian would go out with her hair like this and not stop and think, “Would this offend anyone?” Heck, it’s hard for us to believe she wouldn’t at least stop and think, “Does this look really weird?”

We think that if Khloé Kardashian had asked herself any questions at all about this look she would never have left home. Khloé wore this look to Diana Ross’s 75th birthday. We guess that imitation is the greatest form of flattery…except in this case.

Since they peddle Flat Tummy Teas and Sugar Bear Hair vitamins, it should be no surprise that Kim Kardashian has also endorsed appetite suppressant lollipops. In 2018, the star posted this picture of herself eating one of the lollipops to her millions of followers, and was hit with a wave of criticism.

Actress Jameela Jamil has headed the campaign against these sorts of toxic products. The Good Place star has been in multiple Kardashian-Jenners comment sections fighting for more responsible content.

Incredibly, after Tristan Thompson cheated on Khloé Kardashian when she was nine months pregnant, she took him back and he did it again. To make things even worse, and much more scandalous, the professional athlete cheated with Khloé’s sister’s best friend, Jordyn Woods.

This Kardashian-Jenner story was truly huge, and resulted in the end of Kylie and Jordyn’s long friendship. For her part, Woods went on Red Table Talk to tell Jada Pinkett Smith her side of the story.

Halloween costumes can easily offend people, especially if you’ve decided to dress up as someone else’s culture and call it a costume. For lots of people, they’d rather their cultures weren’t used as costumes that can be put on and then cast aside.

Kim rubbed people up the wrong way when she dressed up as the late Princess of R&B, Aaliyah in 2017. In response to criticisms that she had darkened her skin for the costume, Kim apologized and said, “We don’t see color in my home.”

The beginning of Rob Kardashian and Blac Chyna’s relationship was extremely shocking, and things only got more intense from there. The pair announced their engagement and Chyna’s pregnancy, and then landed their own spin-off, Rob & Chyna.

However, the controversial couple never tied the knot, and ended up in huge public arguments on social media. Rob accused Chyna of cheating, and then posted explicit pictures of her without her consent. In response, Chyna got a restraining order against her daughter’s father.

Just one week after Kim’s 40th birthday on a private island, Kendall decided to have her own secretive 25th birthday party. Importantly, at this time, the rest of the world was stuck indoors thanks to lockdowns and quarantining.

But of course, the mega rich don’t have to follow the same rules as the rest of us. For Kendall’s 25th birthday bash, the model had over 100 guests and a social media ban. In leaked pictures of the do, people were seen partying without masks.

Scott Disick didn’t exactly make a good first impression with viewers of KUWTK. Perhaps one of the worst, most controversial things the reality star has done during his time on the show is shove a $100 bill down a waiter’s throat in Las Vegas.

While it’s now well-known that Scott suffers from addiction and mental health issues, at the time his behavior just seemed like that of a spoiled brat. Thankfully, Disick has since grown up rather a lot, and makes an excellent father to his three children.

With all of their spon con, it’s no wonder that the Kardashian-Jenners occasionally land in hot water over their advertised posts. In 2015, Kim posted a picture of herself and a pack of Diclegis, claiming that the pills helped her with morning sickness.

What’s the issue you say? Well, Diclegis was not FDA approved at the time. Because of this, Kim faced a ton of backlash, especially because the pills can also cause dizziness, digestive issues and sleep disruption.

Shockingly, despite two incidents of appalling cheating from Tristan, Khloé Kardashian seems to have taken the rat back. In an episode of KUWTK, the celeb goes ahead and freezes embryos made with Thompson, deciding she might want more children in the future.

Then, as the world went into lockdown, the pair ended up quarantining together with their daughter. Then, Khloe posted this picture with the caption, “I do appreciate the effort you make and the new you — it’s night and day who you are.”

Despite all of the many controversies and scandals the Kardashian-Jenners have faced, perhaps the most shocking piece of news is that Keeping Up With the Kardashians is finally coming to an end. Why would they do this to us?

We were hoping for many more seasons of North, Penelope, Stormi, and True, but instead the family is shutting it all down and sticking with their online businesses. By the time the show ends, we’ll have been keeping up with the Kardashians for a whopping 14 years.