Kylie Jenner's Leg Scar on That 'GQ' Cover Has a Painful Story Behind It
The details will honestly make you flinch.


As much as I hate the word flawless (what does it even mean?!), there’s really no other word to describe Kylie Jenner’s appearance. Because in every photo, every post, and every clip on TV, the 20-year-old makeup mogul looks like a smooth little doll, with nary a bump nor blemish nor hair out of place. That is, until she appeared on the cover of GQ with a giant scar on her leg.
The Backstory
In the cover photo, Kylie appears with 27-year-old boyfriend Travis Scott, straddling his leg in high-cut black bathing suit. But the most eye-catching thing isn’t the nudey look, but the mark on her leg: a pale, four-inch scar on her thigh that was clearly left untouched by the Photoshoppers.
This isn’t the first time Kylie has shown off her scar, though—she shared a photo of it to Instagram two years ago with the caption, “I love my scar,” and discussed in a 2011 fan Q&A how she got the scar. “When I was about five, my sister [Kendall] and I were playing hide and seek, and I hid inside this really tall, enclosed gate,” Kylie explained.
"After a while, when my sister didn’t find me, I had to climb up on this sharp pole sticking out from the gate. I slipped, and the pole went into my leg. I tried pulling away to get the pole out, but it just tore through my whole leg.”
Are you flinching yet? Yeah, same. Kylie added that her scar is smaller now because she, you know, has physically grown since she was five, but clearly it’s still important to her.
Fans were also quick to notice the scar in the photo, Tweeting:
I mean, hey, it’s just a scar, and Kylie Jenner is just a normal human being (albeit richer and more famous) underneath all of the makeup, airbrushing, and good genes. But it’s still oddly refreshing to see something so relatable on a celebrity, especially one so mysterious and seemingly untouchable as Kylie.
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Should I go do a photoshoot with my scars, too? Brb—doing it anyways.
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Chloe Metzger is the deputy beauty director at Cosmopolitan, overseeing the editorial content and growth strategy of the hair, makeup, and skin space on digital, while also obsessively writing about the best hair products for every hair type (curly girl here; whattup), and the skincare routines that really, truly work (follow her on Instagram to see behind-the-scenes pics of that magazine life). She brings nearly a decade of writing and editing expertise, and her work has appeared in Allure, Health, Fitness, Marie Claire, StyleCaster, and Parents. She also has an unhealthy adoration for Tom Hanks and would like to please meet him one day, if you could arrange that. Thanks.
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