CELEBRITY
Breaking news: Is Kim Kardashian Pimping Out 12-Year-Old North in SKIMS’ Latest Campaign? The Blue Braids Are the Least of It The internet exploded this week when Kim Kardashian unveiled her pre-teen daughter North West as the star of SKIMS’ holiday drop with Cactus Plant Flea Market…read more👇
The outrage isn’t about the gingerbread hoodies.
It’s about the waist-length electric-blue braids, the solo close-ups, the grown-woman cadence in North’s voiceover (“Everybody’s wearing SKIMS”), and the inescapable feeling that a 12-year-old is being packaged, marketed, and sold as the newest sexy-cool face of a brand built on barely-there bodysuits and bedroom loungewear.
Let’s not mince words: this is the same child who, just months ago, was sporting temporary arm tattoos, a hand-web piercing, and full contour at red-carpet events while mommy shrugged, “If she wants blue hair, she gets blue hair.” Critics have been screaming “age-inappropriate” for a year. Kim’s response has essentially been a manicured middle finger and a podcast episode about “letting kids express themselves.” Now she’s handed North the keys to her $5 billion empire and dared the world to say something.
And the world is saying it. Loudly.
On X, the takes range from protective fury (“She’s TWELVE, not a 22-year-old influencer”) to exhausted resignation (“This was always the endgame”). A viral thread currently sitting at 180K likes reads: “Kim saw the backlash over the piercings and tattoos and said ‘hold my iced matcha’ and put her in a national campaign instead.” Another user summed it up brutally: “Congrats North, you’re officially an employee of the family business before you’ve finished middle school.”
Even some longtime Kardashian defenders are squirming. The optics of a child modeling loungewear from a brand whose signature advertising is half-naked supermodels candids in bed are… dicey, to put it mildly.
Kim, of course, frames it as wholesome mother-daughter magic. “Having North in this campaign makes it really special for me,” she cooed in the press release. Translation: nepotism never looked so cozy.
But here’s the part no one can deny, even the ones clutching pearls: North West is magnetic. The camera doesn’t just love her; it’s obsessed with her. That deep voice, the dead-eyed confidence, the way she flips those blue braids like she’s been on set since the womb (because she basically has). She’s not pretending to be a star. She already is one.
And that’s the most uncomfortable truth of all. The outrage feels righteous until you watch the campaign video and realize the kid is outshining every adult in the room without breaking a sweat. Maybe that’s why the criticism stings so much: because deep down, we know this was inevitable. The Kardashian-West machine doesn’t produce normal children. It produces content. And North is the best content they’ve ever made.
So yes, scream about the exploitation, the sexualization, the erasure of childhood. You’re not wrong. But also brace yourself: the blueprint was written the day she was born on a reality-TV operating table. The blue hair is just the latest chapter.
Star quality doesn’t ask permission. It takes the campaign, the paycheck, and the headline (controversial or otherwise) and runs.
And North West is already lapping the competition. ⭐
