You want the messy truth about Kylie Jenner’s brands? Buckle up, because this isn’t just a rebrand drama—it’s a masterclass in how to burn eight figures while looking completely lost in a custom Isabel Marant outfit. Three years ago, she launched Kai as this high-low designer collab dream. Affordable luxury, she said. Designer brands for the everyday customer, she promised. Today? The Instagram is wiped clean. Every post, every collection, every shred of evidence that the first version of Kai ever existed—gone. Replaced by a single photo of downtown Los Angeles and a caption that basically screams “please love me again, I swear this time it’s different.”

But here’s the thing nobody wants to admit out loud: Kylie Jenner hasn’t had a clear aesthetic since the lip kit days of 2016. That’s nearly a decade ago. And watching her fumble through clothing, alcohol, skincare, baby clothes, swimwear, and now electrolytes is like seeing someone throw spaghetti at a wall for eight years straight—except the spaghetti costs $300 a strand and falls right off every single time.

“I was ready to make an order,” one commenter wrote under the Kai rebrand announcement. “But $80 for a tank top you could get at Walmart? And $120 for a plain t-shirt you could get at Target in a five-pack for $15? That has me dead.”

Another fan put it even more bluntly: “A basic t-shirt with Kai in the front for $190. I’m a huge fan of yours and I love this collection, especially the pants, but the price is so out of touch with reality. I know you have a lot of money and you grew up with wealth, so you don’t think about it. But in my house, we can barely afford food, let alone pants for over $500.”

That’s the thing about Kylie’s empire: it’s built on hype, not heart. On headlines, not longevity. And the cracks aren’t just showing anymore—they’re gaping open like a returns bin at a fast-fashion warehouse.

Here’s what I’m going to prove to you by the end of this. Kylie Jenner has quietly become a serial brand-killer—not because she’s untalented or lazy, but because she fundamentally confuses personal passion with trend-chasing. Every single venture follows the same tragic five-act arc: massive launch with a celebrity-studded campaign, zero brand identity after the first month, quiet death by indifference, then a desperate rebrand that completely misses why the first version failed. Rinse. Repeat.

And the people paying the price aren’t just her investors or her business partners. It’s the fans. The same fans who waited in line for her lip kits. The same fans who defended her through every controversy. The same fans who are now filling her comment sections with disappointed essays about grocery bills and rent.

We’re going to track this pattern through the studded belt that sold out for $300—a belt that became the unwilling symbol of everything wrong with Kai 2.0. A belt that Kylie herself wore to a basketball game with Timothée Chalamet while designer jeans that looked nearly identical cost the same or less from an actual established fashion house.

A belt that somehow “sold out” in straight sizes within hours while plus sizes magically vanished before anyone could buy them. By the time we’re done, you’ll see exactly why her audience is turning into a mob of disappointed ex-stans armed with screenshots and calculator apps. And you’ll understand why the only thing Kylie seems truly passionate about anymore is the wire transfer.

Let me take you back to the beginning of this specific trainwreck. Nearly three years ago, Kylie decided to venture back into clothing after the spectacular failure of Kylie Swim. And when I say spectacular failure, I mean the kind of failure that makes you wonder if anyone on her team has ever touched fabric before. The kind of failure that should have been a warning shot for every future fashion project.

“Kylie Swim was extremely short-lived,” one fashion commentator recalled in a video that now has millions of views. “The bathing suits were see-through. Like, actually see-through. You could not wear them in public without a whole situation happening.

They were made only for Kylie’s body type—which is fine, she’s the face of the brand, but if you have any curves at all or literally any body shape different from hers? Good luck. They were expensive. And overall, they looked like something you probably could have bought on Shein for $2. Maybe $3 if you wanted the good stitching.”

Let me give you a number: $78. That was the average price of a Kylie Swim bikini top. For something that became transparent when wet. For something that had no lining, no structure, no quality control. For something that arrived in PR boxes with a note saying “you’re going to love this” while actual customers received products that fell apart after one gentle wash.

I remember seeing a TikTok where a girl held up her Kylie Swim bikini bottom to a window and you could literally see the trees outside. She wasn’t even holding it up to light—just a normal afternoon sun. That’s not swimwear. That’s a liability.

So when Kylie announced Kai, expectations were basically on the floor. Buried under the floor. In a basement. With the lights off. People weren’t hoping for a home run—they were hoping for a product that didn’t disintegrate on contact with water.

But Kai was supposed to be different. That was the pitch, anyway. Kylie stood in front of cameras and said she wanted to bring designer brands to the everyday customer for a more affordable price. She was going to team up with designers she actually loved—real designers, not just her glam team—and collaborate on limited collections. Every drop was going to be with a new designer. Every drop was going to feel like an event. It was supposed to be curated, intentional, and most importantly, accessible.

Initially, the brand did seem to follow that vision. The first few drops had real designer names attached. Prices were capped around $200. People who had written Kylie off started to pay attention again. For about six months, Kai looked like it might actually work. There was buzz. There was excitement. There was this sense that maybe, finally, she had found her post-lip-kit footing.

Then things began to shift. Slowly at first, then all at once. The way these things always do.

The prices crept up. $200 became $250. $250 became $300. $300 became $400 for some items. The designer collaborations became less frequent, then sporadic, then basically nonexistent. One drop was all fur coats and luxury outerwear. The next drop was basic sweats. Then graphic tees. Then puffer jackets in July. There was no through line. No cohesive identity. No sense that anyone was steering the ship with a clear destination in mind.

“It was very much all over the place,” one fashion industry insider told me. “I never even heard anyone really talking about Kai unless it was an influencer who got the stuff sent to them for free in PR. And of course then they would love it so much. That’s how PR works. But actual paying customers? Real people spending their own money? Crickets.

I worked in retail buying for seven years, and one thing I learned is that you can always tell when a brand has a real customer base versus when it’s just surviving on free product drops. Kai was surviving on free product drops.”

For the past year, people have been speculating about Kai’s downfall like it was a slow-motion car crash you couldn’t look away from. Fashion forums lit up with threads titled “Is Kai closing?” and “What happened to Kylie’s clothing line?” and “Another one bites the dust.” YouTubers built entire careers on dissecting each failed drop.

Reddit threads accumulated thousands of comments analyzing the decline in real time. And Kylie’s team stayed quiet. No announcements. No reassurances. Just… silence. The kind of silence that screams louder than any press release.

And then, without warning, Kylie did what she always does when something is failing: she wiped the entire Instagram. Every post. Every collection. Every designer collaboration. Every carefully staged photo. Every “so excited for this drop” caption. Gone. Like it never existed. In its place, a single image of Los Angeles at golden hour and a caption that felt less like an announcement and more like a prayer.

“Born in LA,” the caption read. “This new collection for Kai is very personal to me. It’s inspired, designed, and almost all of it made here in Los Angeles. I can’t wait for this and everything we have coming this year and beyond. From LA to wherever you are. Kisses, Kai.”

As soon as you hear “made in LA” and “personal to me” in the same sentence from a Kardashian-Jenner, you just know it’s going to be expensive. And baby, was it ever.

Here’s where the real mess begins. Kylie started posting sneak peeks of the new collection. Denim made from American cone denim, finished in LA. Studded embellished pants and belts, with each stud and stone placed by hand in Los Angeles. She emphasized the craftsmanship. The local production. The attention to detail. Each post basically preparing us for a price tag that would make your eyes water and your wallet hide in a drawer.

“It’s giving ‘I’m preparing you guys for a hefty price tag,’” one commentator noted. “And that’s exactly what ended up happening. You could see it coming from a mile away. The whole ‘hand-placed stones’ thing is never cheap. But there’s a difference between ‘not cheap’ and ‘are you serious right now.’”

But here’s the thing: before people even saw the prices, the comments under those sneak peek posts were already brutal. Like, truly brutal. The kind of brutal that makes you wonder if Kylie’s social media manager has considered therapy or at least a very long vacation. People were not holding back.

“These are tacky looking, like something you’d find at Ross,” one person wrote. “Going to be $300.”

“There is literally nothing exciting about this launch,” said another. “I understand it’s supposed to give early 2000s vibes, but this is the least creative launch ever. There’s zero creativity behind this. Like, is the hype supposed to be over some dollar store rhinestones? I’m not understanding. I truly do not understand what the vision is here.”

Then she teased a track-pant-looking skirt and hoodie combo. And the confusion just grew louder. “We’re going into summer and you’re releasing skirts made out of this heavy material and sweaters and jeans?” someone pointed out. “What are we supposed to do with this in July? Sweat to death? I don’t get the strategy here. Is this for people in Australia? Is this for ski season? Help me understand.”

But the worst was yet to come. When a certain piece crossed my Instagram feed, I actually stopped scrolling. I put my phone down. I picked it back up. I zoomed in. And I said out loud to no one in my empty apartment, “No. She did not.”

It looked like something from Ardene or Aeropostale in 2012. You know the look: cheap screen print on thin cotton, a logo that’s clearly been ironed on with heat press vinyl, fabric that wrinkles if you look at it wrong. You just know one wash and that logo is peeling off like a bad sunburn. One dry cycle and the fabric is shrinking two sizes. One season and it’s in a donation bin next to that sweater your aunt gave you.

“What are we thinking?” the original video creator asked, her voice dripping with disappointment. “Kylie has so much style. People really look to her for inspiration. That’s what the King Kylie era was all about. She was the mood board for an entire generation. And this is what she gives us? This? A screen-printed hoodie that looks like it came from a mall kiosk?”

Then came the prices. And this is where the studded belt makes its first appearance—not as a product, but as a symbol. A warning. A canary in the coal mine. A little leather harbinger of doom.

$80 for a basic tank top. Not a silk tank. Not a designer tank. A basic cotton tank top with no special cut, no unique detailing, no justification for that number whatsoever. I bought the exact same tank top last week at Old Navy for $5 each. $5. On sale. In four different colors. That’s a 1,500 percent markup. For a tank top that probably cost $3 to produce.

$330 for the studded jeans. $350 for the studded jean jacket. $120 for that cheap-looking t-shirt that was already getting roasted in the comments. And then: the belt. $300 for a studded belt from a rebrand that hasn’t even proven itself yet. A belt made of leather and metal and nothing else. A belt that, by the way, looked nearly identical to designer Isabel Marant studded jeans that Kylie was spotted wearing at a basketball game with Timothée Chalamet the same week she dropped this collection.

Tell me she didn’t do that on purpose. Tell me it was a coincidence. Tell me she just happened to wear almost the exact same studded design while promoting her own studded design. I’ll wait.

“This has to be a social experiment,” one person wrote, “because tell me how the $300 belt is sold out. Tell me who is buying this. Tell me what planet we’re living on. Because on planet Earth, regular people are not spending three hundred dollars on a belt from a brand that wiped its entire identity off the internet two weeks ago.”

Let me pause here and give you a number that should make every reasonable person angry: $300. That’s not a typo. Three hundred US dollars. For a belt. A belt that probably cost $30 to make, including labor and materials and shipping and the little dust bag it comes in and the influencer PR boxes and Kylie’s creative director and the photo shoot and the website hosting. A belt with a markup of 900 percent. A belt that exists because someone in a boardroom said, “She has 400 million followers. Someone will buy it.”

And someone did. Multiple someones. Because the belt sold out in straight sizes within hours. Not days. Hours.

Here’s where it gets even messier. A commenter pointed out the Isabel Marant connection: “She’s smart. People want the Isabel Marants, but they are too pricey, so they will turn to Kai.”

Except here’s the kicker that the commenter missed: Isabel Marant jeans are cheaper or the same price as Kai. Let that sink in. Let it really sink in. Let it sit there and marinate. Kylie Jenner, whose entire brand was built on being the relatable one, the accessible one, the one who wasn’t as untouchable as Kendall or as intimidating as Kim—Kylie Jenner is charging the same as an established Parisian designer with decades of credibility. For a brand that just wiped its entire identity off the internet two weeks ago. For a brand that has no track record of quality. For a brand that people were already calling tacky before the prices even dropped.

I went and checked. Isabel Marant studded jeans retail between $300 and $400 depending on the collection. Sometimes you can find them on sale for $250. So Kylie is charging the same—or more—as a brand that has been doing this for decades. A brand with actual fashion credibility. A brand that doesn’t have to wipe its Instagram and rebrand every two years because no one is buying. A brand that has never been accused of ripping off smaller designers or shipping see-through swimsuits.

The comments section became a support group for disappointed fans. A grief circle for people who wanted to love Kylie but couldn’t anymore. A digital town hall where people gathered to say, “I used to defend her, but I can’t anymore.”

“I’m a huge fan of yours and I love this collection, especially the pants,” one person wrote, trying so hard to be gentle. Trying so hard to soften the blow. “But the price is so out of touch with reality. I know you have a lot of money and you grew up with wealth, so you don’t think about it. But in my house, we can barely afford food, let alone pants for over $500. And I think there are a lot of other people struggling with money right now. So it’s honestly a bit disrespectful and disappointing.”

Another added: “$120 for a t-shirt and $500 for pants is crazy. $300 for a vintage Kai rebrand belt is insane, but y’all have fun. I’ll be at Target. I’ll be at Old Navy. I’ll be at the thrift store. I’ll be anywhere but on your website.”

And then there was the comment that really stung—the one that felt like a breakup text from a loyal fan, the one that probably got screenshot and sent around the group chat: “It’s your job and you’re in charge, even though I would think you have enough money by now. You don’t need to charge $80 for a tank top.

You don’t need to charge $300 for a belt. You’re doing this because you can, not because you have to. And that’s what makes it feel so disrespectful. It’s not about covering costs. It’s about maximizing profit at the expense of the people who made you famous.”

That’s the thing about Kylie. She keeps acting like her target audience is full of rich LA kids with unlimited credit cards and no concept of a budget. Kids who have never looked at a grocery receipt. Kids who think $300 is what a belt just costs.

When really, most of her fans are regular people. People who saved up for her lip kits back in 2016 with their after-school jobs. People who defended her through every scandal because they saw themselves in her. People who grew up alongside her and now have rent to pay, student loans to manage, groceries to buy, car payments to make.

They grew up. She grew away. And now there’s this canyon between them that no amount of “kisses from LA” can bridge.

And they’re tired of being treated like an afterthought in a balance sheet. Tired of being marketed to like walking wallets instead of human beings. Tired of seeing a brand that claims to be for everyone quietly price out everyone who isn’t already wealthy.

But the price drama wasn’t even the worst part of this rebrand. Not by a long shot. Not even close.

Remember how Kai got praised for offering plus sizes? Up to 4X. Inclusive. Progressive. A rare win for a Kardashian-Jenner brand that has historically been criticized for promoting unrealistic body standards. People actually applauded Kylie for that. They said, “See? She’s listening. She’s learning. She’s doing better. Give her credit where credit is due.”

Except when the rebrand launched, something strange happened. Something that made all that praise curdle in real time. Something that turned those applause lines into accusations.

A plus-size influencer who had been on Kai’s PR list for years—someone who had received and promoted multiple drops, someone who had built a following around body positivity and honest reviews—received a package. She’d given them her updated sizing: 3X. That’s what she wears. That’s what fits her. That’s what she told them to send. She had been in communication with their PR team. They had her address. They had her measurements. They had everything.

What arrived in the mail? An extra large.

“I’m like that’s so weird,” she said in a video, holding up the package with a confused expression. “Why would they send me an extra large if they know that I’m a 3X? That doesn’t make sense. But I know this is not a mistake. I know how PR works. I know how sizing works. I know how these things go behind the scenes.

I bet they’re not making their new drops in plus sizes at all, and they just sent me whatever the biggest size was in the PR package they’re sending to everybody. Because that’s cheaper. That’s easier. That’s what brands do when they want the inclusivity points without actually doing the work.”

She decided to wait until the product went live on the website to confirm her suspicion. She gave them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it was a warehouse error. Maybe someone grabbed the wrong box. Maybe she was being paranoid. Maybe she was wrong. She wanted to be wrong.

The product went live. And sure enough: the sweat set went up to 4X on the website, but sizes 1X through 4X were all listed as sold out. Immediately. At the exact same time that small, medium, large, and extra large were all fully in stock. Not “low stock.” Not “almost gone.” Not “only a few left.” Fully available. Clickable. Buyable. While the plus sizes were already grayed out with that devastating “sold out” label that might as well have said “you don’t matter.”

“You guys never stocked the 1X to 4X,” she concluded, her voice calm but furious. The kind of calm that comes after you’ve been disappointed so many times that you don’t have the energy to yell anymore. “You’re making people think you have plus sizes, and now it’s sold out. But you never had them in the first place. I would be fine if you were just honest. Maybe your plus sizes didn’t sell well in the past. Maybe you’re having budget cuts. That would suck, but at least it would be honest. But to lie?

To pretend? To use plus-size bodies for good PR and then not actually serve them? I hate when brands do this. Trying to make themselves seem inclusive when they’re not. It’s worse than not being inclusive at all. Because at least then I know where I stand.”

Let me give you another number: 4X. That’s the size Kai claimed to carry. But if you look at the inventory patterns, the math doesn’t lie. When every single plus size is “sold out” within minutes of launch while straight sizes sit there for days—sometimes weeks—that’s not a sellout. That’s a setup. That’s a brand placing a symbolic order of 10 units per plus size just so they can check the inclusivity box on their diversity report. That’s a brand hoping that no one looks too closely at the numbers.

A former retail buyer commented on the situation, and her comment got thousands of likes: “I worked in e-commerce for years. I’ve been in the room when these decisions are made. When a brand says plus sizes are ‘sold out’ immediately but straight sizes are available for days, it almost always means they never stocked them.

They bought maybe 50 units total across all plus sizes. Maybe less. Sometimes as few as 10. It’s called ‘inclusivity theater’ and it’s disgusting. It’s using marginalized bodies for marketing without actually serving them.”

And here’s where the studded belt comes back. Remember that belt? The one that sold out in straight sizes? The one that became a meme and a symbol and a punching bag all at once? The plus sizes for that belt? Also “sold out.” Immediately. Magically. Despite the fact that no one reported actually seeing them in stock even for a second. Despite the fact that multiple plus-size influencers checked the site at launch time and saw those sizes already grayed out.

The belt became the perfect metaphor for the entire rebrand: expensive, exclusionary, and completely out of touch with the people who actually showed up to support it. A belt that costs $300 but only fits bodies that already have unlimited access to designer clothes. A belt that says “we include everyone” while quietly making sure everyone who isn’t a size small never gets to buy it. A belt that represents everything wrong with performative inclusivity in celebrity fashion.

This brings us to the Isabel Marant situation, because honestly, we can’t ignore it. It would be irresponsible to ignore it.

Kylie went to a basketball game with Timothée Chalamet. The paparazzi photos were everywhere. TMZ had them. People had them. Daily Mail had them. She was wearing studded designer jeans that looked almost identical to the studded jeans she was selling on Kai. Same stud placement. Same wash. Same silhouette. The only difference was the label and about $50.

Some people think Kylie did this on purpose. Like, strategic marketing. Wear the designer version, get papped, and then her fans will flock to her cheaper version. It’s a classic move. Influencers do it all the time. They wear the expensive thing, then link a dupe. It’s not illegal. It’s not even unethical, necessarily. It’s just… smart.

Except here’s the problem: her version wasn’t cheaper.

“Isabel Marant jeans are cheaper or the same price as Kai,” one creator pointed out in a TikTok that got 2 million views. “Please tell me how Kylie can justify putting her prices at the same level as an already established designer brand. How is that the ‘affordable’ option? How is that ‘democratizing fashion’? How is that anything other than a cash grab?”

She pulled up both websites side by side. Kai studded jeans: $330. Isabel Marant studded jeans on sale: $298. She zoomed in on the screenshots. She circled the prices in red. She let the comparison sit there for a full five seconds of silence.

Let me give you a comparison number: $330 for Kai’s studded jeans. Isabel Marant studded jeans retail between $300 and $400 depending on the collection. Sometimes you can find them on sale for $250. So Kylie is charging the same—or more—as a brand that has been doing this for decades. A brand with actual fashion credibility. A brand that doesn’t have to wipe its Instagram and rebrand every two years because no one is buying. A brand that has never been accused of ripping off smaller designers.

And Kylie knows this. Her team knows this. They have to know this. They have access to the same internet we do. They have access to pricing analysts and market researchers. Which means the only explanation is either arrogance or ignorance. Neither is a good look for someone who claims to be a serious businesswoman.

And yet, despite all of this—despite the pricing backlash, despite the inclusivity theater, despite the Isabel Marant comparisons—Kylie gave an interview where she talked about “evolving” and being “intentional.” She sat down with a magazine and said all the right words in all the right order. She said, “I really wanted Kai to evolve into something more permanent and intentional with a focus on building a complete wardrobe that is made to last.

That means we’re creating closet staples that work across different seasons, finding that balance between your everyday basics and those bolder fashion moments. I’ve grown a lot since Kai launched, and my style is constantly evolving, so I want the brand to reflect that.”

But here’s what she didn’t say. Here’s what the interview glossed over completely. Here’s what was missing from every carefully crafted answer.

She didn’t say: “I’m sorry my tank top costs sixteen times more than the exact same thing at Old Navy.”

She didn’t say: “I messed up by not actually stocking plus sizes, and I’m fixing it right now. Here’s the plan. Here’s the timeline. Here’s how you can hold me accountable.”

She didn’t say: “I have no idea what season it is, so here’s a sweater in May and a skirt made of denim that weighs eight pounds. That was a mistake. That was bad planning. I’ll do better.”

She didn’t say: “I copied Isabel Marant and hoped no one would notice. That was wrong. Or at least, that was lazy.”

She didn’t say any of that. Because she didn’t have to. Because the interview was soft. Because no one asked her the hard questions. Because the magazine wanted access, not answers.

Because let’s be real—the seasonal confusion is its own disaster. Launching heavy denim, jackets, and sweats as we head into summer? That’s not a fashion statement. That’s a liquidation sale waiting to happen. That’s a brand so disconnected from its customers that it doesn’t even know what weather they’re living in. That’s a brand that launches based on a calendar, not based on actual human needs.

One commenter put it perfectly, and I’m going to quote them directly because they said what everyone was thinking: “This brand hasn’t even launched and everything is already all over the place. Like, we’re going into summer and you’re releasing skirts made out of this heavy material and sweaters and jeans. I don’t get it. Who is this for? When are we supposed to wear this? In August? In a heat wave? In a hundred-degree LA summer? Are you trying to give us heat stroke?”

Now, if you think Kai is the only Kylie brand having an identity crisis, let me introduce you to Sprinter. Oh, Sprinter. The brand that went from getting you drunk to getting you hydrated, with no explanation and no apology and no acknowledgment that anyone might be confused.

Launched in 2024 as a ready-to-drink vodka soda. Canned. Carbonated. Marketed as the drink you bring to parties and picnics and pool days. Kylie entered an already oversaturated market—White Claw, High Noon, Truly, Cutwater, the list goes on and on. And the branding? It didn’t feel like her at all. Generic fonts. Generic colors. Generic flavors. No Kylie energy whatsoever. No signature. No personality. It could have been anyone’s brand.

A few reviews at launch, mostly from influencers who got paid to say it was “so good” and “so refreshing” and “literally my new favorite thing.” Then… crickets. Silence so loud you could hear a studded belt drop from three states away. No viral moments. No cultural footprint. No one talking about it at parties. No one asking for it by name. Just a quiet fizzle that everyone pretended not to notice.

Two years later, Kylie starts teasing something on TikTok. It looks like an electrolyte packet. Powder in a stick. The kind of thing you add to water before or after a workout. The kind of thing that every wellness influencer is selling right now. People think she’s launching a new drink brand—something fresh, something different, something that might actually make sense for her current lifestyle.

Nope.

She just decided to fully rebrand Sprinter. From alcohol to electrolytes. No warning. No transition period. No “hey, we’re pivoting, here’s why.” Just a hard right turn that left everyone saying, “Wait, what? Did I miss something? Did I black out and miss an announcement?”

“This is K2O by Sprinter,” she announced in a video, holding up a packet with a straight face. “Our first line of advanced skin hydration mixes. We are hydrating our skin from within. We’re hydrating our body. We’re hydrating our skin. We’re staying beautiful. All 2026 is about doing things outside of our comfort zone.”

Let me pause here and read you the ingredients she listed because it’s actually kind of wild: Verasol collagen peptides. The most studied collagen peptides with proven benefits for skin elasticity, fine lines, and wrinkles. Hyaluronic acid. Five different electrolytes. And lower sodium than other brands because, as she put it, “I was realizing other brands I was using before had 1,000 milligrams of sodium which was making me retain water and making me bloated. So we put in the perfect amount to keep you hydrated every day, and they’re delicious.”

One person commented exactly what we were all thinking, and that comment got pinned by accident or on purpose: “How did we go from alcohol to electrolytes? Out of your comfort zone and it’s just electrolytes. Confused? I’m very confused.”

Another added: “So this isn’t an alcohol brand anymore? It’s just yet another example of Kylie doing what’s popular and not what she’s actually interested in. First skincare was popular, so she did Kylie Skin. Then babies were popular in her circle, so she did Kylie Baby. Then swimwear was trending on Instagram, so she did Kylie Swim. Then wellness became popular, so now Sprinter is electrolytes. She’s a trend chaser, not a trendsetter. She’s reacting, not leading.”

And that’s the pattern, isn’t it? That’s the through line that connects every single one of her failed ventures. That’s the common denominator that explains everything.

Kylie Skin launched with that infamous almond scrub that dermatologists side-eyed into oblivion. Things she would never actually use on her own face—because she has access to the best dermatologists and estheticians in the world, because she knows that almond scrub is too harsh for most skin types, because she would never put that on her own skin. But skincare was a booming market, so she threw something together and slapped her name on it. And when people called her out? Silence.

Kylie Baby came out when most of her audience wasn’t even thinking about children yet. Her fans were still in college, still starting careers, still figuring out their own lives. But she was having a baby, so why not sell products to other people having babies? Never mind that baby products require trust and safety testing and a level of accountability that she wasn’t prepared for. Never mind that her audience wasn’t there yet.

Kylie Swim was see-through and overpriced and completely unwearable for anyone who wasn’t shaped exactly like her. But swimwear was trending on Instagram, so she launched a line without doing basic quality control. Without testing the fabric in water. Without asking a single person with a different body type to try it on.

And now Sprinter goes from booze to hydration because wellness is the new gold rush. Because every influencer and celebrity is launching a supplement or a powder or a potion. Because collagen peptides are the buzzword of the year. Because there’s money to be made in hydration, and Kylie wants her cut.

Everything is a cash grab. There’s no passion beyond making money. And people can tell. They can always tell. You cannot fake authenticity. You cannot manufacture passion. You cannot PR your way into people believing that you care when your actions say otherwise.

Let me give you a third number: 0. That’s how many of Kylie’s post-lip-kit brands have felt genuinely her own. Zero. The lip kits worked because she actually wore those colors. She swatched them. She named them after her friends and her moods and her memories. She cared. You could feel it in the product. You could see it in the way she talked about them. You could tell that she had opinions about the formula and the applicator and the packaging.

Everything after that has been throwing whatever at the wall and seeing what sticks—then acting surprised when it all slides off onto the floor in a heap of unsold inventory and disappointed customers.

The contrast with Kim is sharp and maybe a little uncomfortable to say out loud. Love her or hate her—and people have very strong opinions either way, and I respect that—Kim’s brands feel intentional. Skims makes perfect sense for her shapewear-obsessed brain. She’s been talking about shapewear for over a decade. She understands the market, the fit, the customer, the pain points. She wears it herself. She believes in it. Even her weird non-caffeinated energy drink collab had a logic to it: Kim doesn’t drink caffeine, so she made a drink she could actually consume. That’s not trend-chasing. That’s problem-solving.

Kylie? She’s all over the place. She seems so lost. Like someone wandering through a dark room, bumping into furniture, hoping to find a light switch. And she could have such a good brand if she just stuck to one or two things and really put her energy there instead of spreading herself so thin across clothing and alcohol and skincare and baby products and swimwear and electrolytes. If she just said, “This is what I love. This is what I’m good at. This is what I’m going to focus on.”

But she won’t. Because that would require stopping the launch cycle. And Kylie doesn’t know how to sit still. She confuses activity with progress. Every new brand is a fresh start, a clean slate, a chance to finally get it right. Except she keeps carrying the same problems with her: no identity, no audience awareness, no willingness to actually listen to criticism, and a fundamental misunderstanding of what made her successful in the first place.

Let me take you back to the studded belt one last time. Because here’s what that belt really represents. It’s not just an overpriced accessory. It’s not just a copy of a designer piece. It’s not just a symbol of performative inclusivity. It’s the moment when even her most loyal fans realized they were being played. The moment when the spell broke. The moment when people stopped making excuses for her.

That belt sold out in straight sizes almost instantly—because a handful of rich kids and bots and maybe some money laundering or reselling or just people with more dollars than sense bought it. But the plus sizes? The ones that would have shown genuine inclusivity if they had actually existed? Ghosted. The message was clear: you can look, but you can’t touch. Unless you’re a size small with $300 to burn and no concept of what a grocery bill looks like, this brand is not for you.

And the thing is, Kylie knows. She has to know. Her comments are filled with people begging her to be better. People who still want to love her. People who remember the King Kylie era and want to see that spark again. People who are genuinely disappointed, not because they hate her, but because they used to love her.

“I was ready to make an order,” one person wrote, and you could feel the exhaustion in her words. “But $80 for a tank top you could get at Walmart has me dead. I wanted to support you. I’ve been following you for ten years. Ten years. Since before the lip kits. Since before the magazines. Since before all of this. But I can’t do this anymore. I can’t keep defending you to my friends. I can’t keep making excuses.”

Another said: “It’s almost like she doesn’t know who her target audience is. Unless she wants her target audience to be rich LA kids with trust funds, I don’t know who this is for. It’s certainly not for me. And I used to be her biggest fan. I had the lip kits. I had the merch. I had the whole thing. And now I feel like I don’t even know who she is anymore.”

That’s the tragedy here. That’s what makes this whole thing so sad to watch. That’s what turns this from a business critique into something more personal. Kylie Jenner built an empire on being relatable. The youngest self-made billionaire (controversies about that title aside, and there are many). The girl who turned lip kits into a dynasty from her bedroom. The one who seemed more normal than the rest of her family. The one who posted grainy videos on her story eating cereal in her kitchen.

And now she’s become exactly what she used to rebel against: out of touch, overpriced, and deeply disconnected from the people who made her famous. A brand that sells $300 belts to no one while pretending to care about everyone. A brand that talks about inclusivity while quietly excluding the bodies that need it most. A brand that could have been so much more.

So what do you think? Will this Kai rebrand actually go somewhere, or will it be yet another short-lived endeavor like Kylie Swim and Kylie Baby and whatever Sprinter is trying to be now? Will she finally listen to the plus-size community and actually stock those sizes? Will she realize that $300 belts don’t sell to people who remember buying her lip kits with their allowance money? Will she ever find her footing again?

Or will she just wipe the Instagram again in another year and start over with a new concept that also makes no sense? Maybe Kai becomes a home goods line next. Kai candles. Kai bedding. Kai dishware. Maybe Kai becomes pet accessories. A $400 leash. A $200 food bowl.

Maybe Kai becomes nothing, just another entry in the growing list of Kylie brands that launched with a bang and ended with a shrug and a deleted Instagram and a statement that says “we’ve decided to take a different direction.”

The comments are waiting. The forums are buzzing. The YouTubers are sharpening their knives. The Reddit threads are growing by the hour. And honestly? So are we. Because watching Kylie Jenner fumble through her own empire is exhausting—but it’s also impossible to look away. It’s a slow-motion car crash in designer denim. It’s a reality show within a reality show.

That studded belt is sold out. But the real question is: for how long? And at what cost to her reputation? And who actually bought it? And will they buy the next one? And the one after that?

Kisses from LA, I guess. But baby, we’re not buying it. Not anymore. Not at these prices. Not with this energy. Not when you keep treating us like ATMs instead of people.

The King Kylie era is over. And whatever comes next? It needs to be a whole lot better than a $300 belt that doesn’t even come in a 2X.