Kendall Jenner Opens Up About Acne ‘Completely Ruining’ Her Self-Esteem: ‘I Wouldn’t Even Look at People When I Talked to Them’

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She’s regularly featured in the pages of Vogue, she walks the runway for the biggest fashion labels and she’s the face of Estée Lauder, so it’s hard to believe that Kendall Jenner ever had major problems with her skin.

But according to the 19-year-old supermodel, she seriously struggled with acne while growing up and she details the experience in a new blog post she posted on her website Tuesday.

“I had such bad acne when I was younger; I remember it SO well!” Jenner wrote, adding that her skin issues started “around the 8th or 9th grade.”

Jenner recalled a time when she was sitting by the pool at home and her older sisters gave her their best beauty tip, which was to keep her hands off her face and “to never pick.”

According to the Keeping Up with the Kardashians star, she got acne “from being a teenager and simply growing up, which happens to SO many people,” but she readily admitted that it was a major confidence blow.

“Where it really impacted me was how self-conscious I became about it. It completely ruined my self-esteem. I wouldn’t even look at people when I talked to them,” Jenner revealed. “I felt like such an outcast; when I spoke, it was with my hand covering my face. Sure, I had crushes in high school, but I wouldn’t even think about looking at guys.”

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She went on to explain that she often talked about it with the rest of her famous family: “They would help me work on my feelings about it and how I would move past that stage of my life.”

“I remember on Christmas Eve one year, I was sitting in my bedroom upstairs crying and Kim [Kardashian West] walked in and we talked about it together — she felt so bad for me,” she added.

Jenner said within a few years, with the help of time and her “incredible dermatologist,” her skin began to clear up. She also started doing Laser Genesis, a form of skin therapy designed to improve skin texture, which helped her become “acne-free for about three years now.”

“What I want everyone to understand is that it’s been a process: It wasn’t anything that happened overnight,” she added. “Even after things started to clear up, it took a solid amount of time to be okay with my skin and gain back my confidence.”

Jenner admitted that even today she still feels “a little bit self-conscious” when the odd zit creeps in here and there, but that she’s doing her best to see past it.

“Slowly, I’m working towards not caring and I’m just in so much of a better place about it all now that I’m older,” she concluded. “I realized that it’s a part of life for some people and it doesn’t define who you are.”

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–Aurelie Corinthios