That Kylie Jenner Pregnancy Photo Was Fake, But Thirst For Details Remains Very Real

As Kylie Jenner has gone deeper into her publicity hibernation, thirst for any and all details about her “alleged” impending pregnancy has reached a fever pitch both on social media and the media. The Kardashians have always given the world a steady stream of, for lack of a better term, well-performing “content,” and for some time now the youngest and most unapologetically millennial, Jenner, queen of Snapchat and she of 100 million Instagram followers, has been the most reliable faucet. Yet, by suddenly shutting the faucet off, it appears she’s caused some glitch in the matrix and the whole Kardashian-to-Content pipeline has short circuited. Naturally, people are losing their minds. By the time this is all done, we fully expect to read a headline that says, “Is Kylie Jenner‘s pregnancy actually part of a top secret human-animal hybrid cloning experiment? Someone on Twitter says ‘….probably?!'”

For instance, just yesterday a picture of a pregnant woman who kind of, sort of looked like Kylie, casually shopping in a Los Angeles-area CVS appeared on otherwise respectable websites as if they were legitimately Kylie. Never mind that there were a lot of reasons to be highly suspicious of the claim. For one, Kylie’s particular aesthetic has become so widely copied in recent years that the Los Angeles-area is inundated with women who kind of, sort of look like her (indeed, plastic surgeons reports an uptick in recent years of people bringing photos of Kylie into their offices). It wouldn’t be that surprising should one of them also happen to be pregnant and wind up shopping in a CVS. For another, why would Kylie risk blowing up months of strategic seclusion just to make a toiletry run at some CVS? Everyone in L.A. knows how to use Postmates! Most tellingly, though, is that the photos never made their way to sites like TMZ, who, if they aren’t the first to break the latest hot celeb news, are quick to follow it up with lightening speed.

Indeed, it was TMZ who broke the news this morning that, no, it wasn’t actually Kylie. We really hope that girl in the photo got a kick out of it, and, if she wants, could probably find a way to turn the whole fiasco into a few hundred thousand new Instagram followers for herself (people who vaguely look like a Kardashian are incredibly popular on the social site these days).

Then there’s the even more spurious claim, one some on social media are treating as a mere joke and others are going into full-on conspiracy theory mode over, that it was Kylie who actually served as the surrogate for Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s newly born daughter. The only real facts we have to suggest that is the matter of the timing, but you’ll find plenty of headlines littering the web today that are basically, “Uh, this probably isn’t true, but here’s twelve random people we found on Twitter who seem to think so.” (Random people on Twitter were falsely swearing that Jenner was giving birth just last week, so maybe random people on Twitter aren’t the best source of Jenner-related news.)

Then there’s also the fact that Kim thanked Kylie for the birth gift she send over on Instagram stories. If, say, you just carried someone’s child for nine months, it would probably be Kim who was gifting an epic bouquet of flowers to Kylie, not the other way around. There’s also the matter that a crib was photographed being delivered to Kylie’s home today, suggesting that she would be raising her own child in her own home. Unless, of course, it’s just a piece of furniture that vaguely looks like a crib in the way that a random CVS girl vaguely looked like Kylie.

We don’t know anymore, and the only thing keeping us from going crazy over tracking down clues is that every time we search “Kylie” on Twitter, we also come across news that Kylie Minogue has a new album on the way. Actually, now we’re starting the conspiracy theory that this is all just an elaborate publicity stunt to promote Minogue’s latest album as settled by the lawyers involved in the recent legal squabble by the two Kylies. Makes about as much sense as some of these other conspiracy theories.

In reality, we actually just believe the gossip that Jenner is taking the opportunity to keep a major milestone in her life private for the first time since she was 10 years old.

Related: Kylie Jenner Is Keeping Her Pregnancy a Secret Because She’s Lived Her Life Publicly