Kendall Jenner Breaks Down Talking About Pepsi ad Controversy for First Time.
The commercial, which was largely seen as a shallow and trivializing take on protest movements, was eventually pulled by the company. Now, Kendall’s shared more information about how and why she agreed to do it in the first place:
“When I first got this offer, I mean, it’s a huge company … the people I was following were so iconic and amazing….to get something like that, it was so exciting. And I trusted everyone, I trusted the teams. But after I saw the reaction and I read what people had to say about it, I most definitely saw what went wrong. I was so stuck and I really didn’t know what to do that I completely shut down.”
Later on in the episode, she cried while saying:
“I would never purposely hurt someone, ever…if I knew that this was gonna be the outcome, I would have never done something like this. But you don’t know when you’re in the moment…I just felt so fucking stupid. The fact that I would offend other people or hurt other people was definitely not the intent. And that’s what got me the most. Is that I would have ever made anyone else upset.”
Other members of the family also weighed in with their takes on the backlash. Khloé opined:
“Kendall did a commercial and basically caused a huge controversy. It sucks, because she’s been taking the blame for it all. Kendall tries really hard to be socially conscious and aware of the jobs that she takes … so it weighs really heavy on her heart. Her intent is never to disrespect or offend anybody.”
Kim, also no stranger to public backlash, offered her younger half-sister some advice on navigating the negative feedback:
“This is your first real experience with something like this … It should affect you in a way where you grow from it…I just wish that you could see that there’s light at the end of the tunnel and that it will be okay if you’re just honest and open.”
The sisters also spent time discussing their frustration with Caitlyn Jenner’s memoir book tour. In particularly, Caitlyn had defended Kendall’s ad with Pepsi after it came out, specifically revealing that Kendall had seen the ad’s script and approved it beforehand, a claim Kendall denied then and formally addressed on Sunday night’s show:
“Someone calls me with more bad news every five minutes. It’s so stressful. What upsets me the most is that Dad brought up the commercial. … She doesn’t actually know what happened. She just like, word-vomits.
I just feel really, really bad. I feel really bad that anyone was ever offended. I feel really bad that this was taken such a wrong way. I genuinely feel like shit. I have no idea how I’m going to bounce back from it. I don’t even know what to do.”
