Kylie Jenner has opened up about what it was like growing up on television, and the “crazy” situations she and sister Kendall Jenner encountered while their family’s fame skyrocketed.
Kylie was only nine when Keeping Up With the Kardashians first hit the airwaves, with Kendall aged 11 at the time.
The two sisters are Kris Jenner and Caitlyn Jenner’s children together. Kris is also mom to four older children — Kim, Khloé, Kourtney and Rob — from her late ex-husband Robert Kardashian.
All six members of the family appeared on the long-running E! series, which became one of the defining reality TV shows in the US.
Because Kendall and Kylie are much younger than the rest of their siblings — with a 19-year age gap between Kylie and the eldest, Kourtney — they experienced the rise of the show while still in childhood.
While their older siblings were already young adults when KUWTK began, Kylie and Kendall essentially grew up with cameras around them.
Speaking on the THERAPUSS WITH JAKE SHANE podcast, Kylie — now a reality TV star and beauty entrepreneur — was asked whether she remembers much from before filming became part of everyday life.
“I do, yes, but not a lot of memories,” Kylie recalled. “They were there one day in the house and everyone made it seem really normal. So it felt pretty natural, I will say.”
She also described the early run of KUWTK as her favorite period, explaining that filming helped keep the family connected. Kylie, who is dating Academy Award-nominated actor Timothée Chalamet, shared: “I felt like it really kind of brought us all together. It still does today.
“And, we’re all hanging out this Sunday we were doing a movie night at my mom’s house. No cameras, but other than that, our schedules and our lives and our kids and everything, it gets to be a lot that filming really brings us and keeps us together because we all we’re working together.”
Kylie then pointed to one standout moment that still comes up in conversations with Kendall, now 30.
“The malls were shut down. Kendall I talk about that often,” Kylie said of when her and her family would make public appearances at the beginning of their KUTWK fame.
Looking back as an adult, she said it’s striking to realize how young they were when it all happened.
“When you’re in it and you’re so young, you don’t even realize, what’s happening,” she went on. “And then when you are an adult and you look back to it, you’re like, ‘Oh my God, we were children.’
“We had no idea this was how crazy this was, right? We were just working and it just it was wild.”