Tyra Banks Defends Kim Kardashian’s Skims Photo Shoot Amid Backlash

Former America’s Next Top Model judge Tyra Banks has jumped in to defend Kim Kardashian after her latest Skims photo shoot divided opinion.

ICYMI, last week, Kim Kardashian’s brand Skims faced backlash on social media over the lack of body diversity in its Fits Everybody range campaign. The range—which comes in nine shades and sizes XXS to 4X—has been designed to, quite literally, fit everybody. But the four women chosen to promote the campaign—Tyra Banks, Heidi Klum, Candice Swanepoel, and Alessandra Ambrosio—have all modeled for Victoria’s Secret, prompting fans of the brand to question how diverse the Fits Everybody range really is.

“Introducing Tyra, Heidi, Alessandra, and Candice in their first-ever joint campaign,” a Skims post debuting the range on Instagram read. “Wearing our signature Fits Everybody collection, it doesn’t get more iconic than this.” Within hours, the post had racked up more than 150K Likes, with plenty of positive comments from excited fans. “This is everything!!!!” one person wrote under the Instagram post, with another putting: “This is beyond iconic.” A third person said, “I love this so much!”

On her own Instagram, Kim shared a photo from the campaign with her 298 million followers. “Okay so I wasn’t supposed to be in this @Skims campaign but I stopped by and jumped in because it was too iconic,” she wrote in the caption. “Introducing Tyra, Heidi, Alessandra, and Candice wearing our signature Skims Fits Everybody collection.”

But not everyone welcomed the selection of models used for the campaign. “‘Skims Fits Everybody,’ says the photograph of four skinny, conventionally pretty people,” one person tweeted, with another saying: “Not Ms. Kim K. making a Skims Fits Everybody campaign and using only literal supermodels.”

A third person commented, “I’m losing my mind at the fact Skims are promoting their line Fits Everybody by using four supermodels.” As a fourth tweeted: “Skims put out a new campaign for their Fits Everybody collection and I’m not sure how these four people represent everybody.” Someone else said, “Nothing says ‘Skims Fits Everybody’ like four women who all wear a size 6 or below.”

Now, Tyra (who starred in the shoot) has spoken out against the campaign’s criticism. “This is something I’ve been talking about for decades,” the 48-year-old model said on the Today show this week. “So, me curvier, me damn near almost 50 years old in this campaign—I think it is pretty empowering.”

Recalling her groundbreaking appearance as the first Black woman on the cover of Sports Illustrated in 1997, Tyra added, “[Kim] said when I was on the cover of Sports Illustrated, she hadn’t seen boobs that were real and big. She said that that gave her self-esteem for her body. So we had, like, a serious conversation, and I finally said, ‘Let’s do this!’”

Kim replied, “We just had an honest heart-to-heart conversation, and she got to hear what the brand stands for, why I started the brand—and I’m just all about supporting women.”

This is not the first time Kim has come under fire for her brand. In fact, shortly after announcing her venture into the underwear business, she was forced to rename the brand due to claims that Kimono (the name she initially settled on) appropriated Japanese culture.

Cosmopolitan UK has reached out to a representative for Skims for comment.

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