The Keeping Up With the Kardashians sisters have been set up for comparison their entire lives. In some ways, it’s impossible for three women from the same famous family to escape this kind of public scrutiny.
Fans have considered everything from which one of the three alliteratively-named sisters has the most Instagram followers to who is the shortest. Given that all of the sisters have so successfully leveraged social media into success for their careers and that those posts often feature images of themselves, their appearances are often a source of much discussion.
Lately, fans have been wondering why one of the three doesn’t look like either of her parents.
The Kardashian family tree is complex
The Kardashian family rose to fame with the groundbreaking appearance of Keeping Up with the Kardashians in 2007. At that point, the public was introduced to Kris Jenner and her five daughters. For many people, the family seemed to come out of nowhere, but they had some connections to the public eye before this reality show premiered.
The three oldest women — Khloé, Kourtney, and Kim Kardashian — are the daughters from Kris Jenner’s previous marriage to Robert Kardashian. The pair also had a son named Robert Kardashian, Jr.
The elder Robert Kardashian, who passed away in 2003, was famously one of the lawyers who worked on O.J. Simpson’s defense team. Kris Jenner and Robert Kardashian were divorced in 1991. Later, Kris Jenner and Caitlyn Jenner would have two more daughters named Kylie and Kendall Jenner.
Since then, the Kardashian and Jenner sisters have grown up in the public eye, and many of them have gone on to have children of their own. Fans of the reality TV show today see a complex web of family members on the screen.
Kardashian-Jenners get criticism for altering their appearances
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Over the years, the sisters have frequently been picked apart for posting photographs that fans believe are altered. Recently, for example, Kourtney Kardashian was accused of editing photographs to make it appear that she had gained weight.
In this case, the speculation was that Kardashian was attempting to fuel even more rumors about her potentially rekindled relationship with Scott Disick by making fans focus on a potential pregnancy.
In less dramatic alterations, the sisters have frequently tweaked their appearance in social media posts. Since they’ve been in the public eye for so much of their lives, there are plenty of before and after photos to compare side-by-side, and fans frequently suggest that plastic surgery or heavy-handed photo editing has changed their faces so much that they are practically unrecognizable from their former selves.
One sister doesn’t look like her parents, say fans
Keeping up with the trend of picking apart the Kardashian sisters’ appearance, a Reddit thread asked participants to rate who the girls most resembled: their mother Kris Jenner or father Robert Kardashian.
Many fans were quick to agree that Kourtney Kardashian looks a lot like her late father. “Kourt is all her dad,” one wrote. Kim Kardashian, many weighed in, looks like a mix of both of her parents. “Kim and Kourtney looked like twins as they were younger, and both beautifully manifest features from both their parents,” another commenter added.
The one sister that fans couldn’t readily place with either parent, however, was Khloe Kardashian. “Sorry to be scandalous, but she looks nothing like Robert,” one commenter explained “[K]hloe looks like none,” another added.
Some fans went so far as to spin their own conspiracy theories about Khloe Kardashian’s true parentage. “I cannot be convinced that Khloé is Rob’s child. I mean even he had suspicions, and I believe he’d know more than we’ve been let to. She doesn’t look like neither of them – from bone structure, to color complexions,” one fan wrote. Another went even further by naming a potential father: “It’s jarring how much Khloe looks like Alex Roldan. I would probably bet my life that’s her bio dad.”