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It started, as these things often do now, with a TikTok. In a video that has since been viewed 2.8 million times, creator Rachel Leary asked Kylie Jenner for the exact specifications of her breast augmentation. Rather than ignoring it (as the Kardashian-Jenner clan are famously known to do when cosmetic surgery questions arise), Jenner commented that she opted for 445 CC, moderate-profile, silicone implants, placed half under the muscle, performed by Dr Garth Fisher, which she capped off with a casual “Hope this helps lol.”
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It was a startling moment of honesty from a woman whose image — and fortune — has been built on the mystery of transformation. Back in 2014, Jenner vehemently denied having any lip filler at all, insisting her sudden pout was the result of clever over-lining techniques. Shortly after, she monetised the speculation by launching Kylie Cosmetics Lip Kits — the product that would eventually make her one of the youngest self-made billionaires — before finally admitting to the injections in 2015.
But that was then. Now, from influencers live streaming failed product launches to celebrities like Julia Fox being honest about undergoing liposuction, we’re entering the age of radical honesty, where previous taboo subjects like undergoing cosmetic procedures, duping designs, or relying on artificial intelligence tools are being spoken about more openly. And it’s not just individuals — brands are embracing it, too.
Last month, Steve Madden went viral after appearing on ‘The Cutting Room Floor’ podcast, where he was asked how he responds to critics who call his company a knock-off brand. “It’s like calling The Beatles a knock-off band because they took a little bit from Motown and a little from Elvis,” he said, before launching into a self-deprecating game of guessing which shoe designs he had copied. He also spoke bluntly about his time in prison for securities fraud and shared unfiltered opinions on tariffs and the global trade war.
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“We’ll be honest, when we first saw the clips circulating online, we held our breath for the comments section,” wrote People, Brands and Things, a daily Instagram page that covers campaign, marketing and consumer behaviour trends. “Would people tear him apart for his overconfidence or his history of duping?” But after hours spent scrolling through a video that has now garnered over nine million views, the takeaway was the opposite. “Our favourite comments included: ‘You know what, I respect him doubling down on his choices,’ and ‘At least he didn’t act like he didn’t know. I can appreciate that.’” The newsletter noted that Madden’s refusal to serve up a carefully polished, PR-vetted answer was precisely what made him resonate: “He was just honest. And that’s exactly why people responded so positively.”
Indeed, in the days following the interview, Steve Madden’s stock climbed to its highest level in a year, while TikTok users began posting about plans to buy the brand’s shoes. Online interest spiked, according to the company, with Google searches for “Steve Madden” rising more than 60 per cent and organic website traffic increasing by 10 per cent.
This shift towards radical honesty has been bubbling for some time. In late 2024, British fragrance brand Haeckels rebranded to Formerly Known As Haeckels (FKA Haeckels), openly confronting the problematic legacy of its namesake. Rather than quietly pivoting, the brand very publically explained its decision, published cost and energy breakdowns, and overhauled packaging for compostable alternatives. Since then, they have been documenting the process every step of the way, and have invited their community to give input on the renaming, which is happening at the end of this year.
The natural beauty brand is scrapping its name, streamlining its product offering and overhauling its packaging.
“We’re a small team with limited resources, no big-budget rollouts, no media blitz. But what we did have was radical honesty — and that had a ripple effect we couldn’t have predicted. The conversations it sparked, the feedback we received, it floored me,” says Ann-Margret Kearney, CEO of FKA Haeckels, on the brand’s decision to be so open. “We planned for every scenario, laid everything bare and told the whole truth. When you do that, you give people something solid to trust. And trust, once earned that way, is hard to shake.”
Meanwhile in May, resale platform Luxe Collective posted a TikTok revealing that a burglary had devastated the company financially and emotionally. In a raw, front-facing video, co-founder Ben Gallagher admitted that the trauma “ultimately affected my leadership and strategic decision-making”, adding that he takes “100 per cent accountability” for the missteps that followed. Then, he dropped the news: the company was closing down. In response to his radical honesty, many rallied around him, stating that they “had his back” and that they would “support his next business venture”.
“For a generation of audiences who have constantly been fed an almost exclusively media-friendly version of reality, radical honesty feels refreshing. It mirrors how consumers themselves talk online — with transparency, self-awareness and a healthy dose of scepticism,” says Thomas Walters, Europe CEO and co-founder of marketing agency Billion Dollar Boy. He notes that according to a recent Billion Dollar Boy report, 73 per cent of consumers are more loyal to brands they perceive to be authentic.
Whether carefully calculated or unintentionally revealing, this wave of candor is reshaping how consumers relate to brands and public figures, alike. But is honesty always the best policy? Can too much transparency backfire? And are we now packaging vulnerability just as strategically as we once packaged perfection?
How radical honesty became the currency of consumer trust
There’s nowhere to hide in a culture where everyone is terminally online and perpetually watching. From fashion call-out pages like Diet Prada to TikTok accounts dedicated to tracking celebrity surgery timelines, the internet is a 24-7 surveillance machine. Over time, celebrities such as the Kardashian-Jenners have learnt to manage this scrutiny by getting ahead of the scandal — seizing control of the narrative before it spirals. But as consumers grow increasingly media-literature, carefully PR-vetted, watered-down responses no longer suffice.
In this climate, radical honesty — whereby public figures offer blunt, unfiltered self-disclosures — has emerged as both a coping mechanism and a branding strategy. If you confess all of your flaws first, there’s nothing left to expose, or at the very least, “it means less when people critique them compared to performing perfection and creating a higher pedestal to fall from”, says fashion theorist Rian Phin.
“Being forthcoming softens the blow for scandals or mistakes, and makes stars less cancellable to their audiences,” Phin continues. “It’s the ‘relatable culture’ of the 2010s but backwards. Instead of celebs surprising you with facts that they’re just like you (Jennifer Lawrence eats PIZZA?!), they’re saying they have the same (bad) motivations and also succumb to universal evils like greed and vanity, which makes it difficult to be hard on them, because we feel these things too.”
This candour taps into deeper exhaustion. People are burnt out from trying to navigate a world where doing the ‘right’ thing often feels impossible — morally, financially and emotionally. This generation has come of age under the weight of overlapping crises: a global pandemic, unaffordable housing, mounting student debt, the rising cost of living, stagnant wages. These conditions have already sparked economic nihilism, where Gen Z consumers spend impulsively as a form of emotional relief. Radical honesty, in this context, becomes a pressure valve. It gives people permission to engage once-taboo behaviours (cosmetic surgery, fast fashion, the overuse of tech) without having to justify them.
In response to the turbulent socioeconomic climate they’ve grown up in, young consumers are embracing escapist aesthetics, chaotic spending beyond their means and contradictory expectations. How can brands respond?
“It’s less about the morality of the celeb’s honesty and more about appealing to people’s desires to do whatever they want without consequence,” says Phin. “That demographic doesn’t want to have to think about ethics when they shop or use AI, or what actually drives them to get cosmetic procedures, because they feel helpless to the conditions informing these things. It’s like ethical-consideration fatigue for people without a strong identity.”
This is partly why radical honesty often leads, not to public backlash, but to a spike in demand. “I am everyone’s secret. The facialist gets the shoutout, but never the aesthetic doctor,” says plastic surgeon Ash Soni, founder of Soni Clinic, based in London and Ascot, whose roster features many high-profile clients. “The stigma is slowly breaking — it’s taken years — but demand is booming as people find out what celebrities are really doing and who they’re seeing.” Still, Soni cautions against the trend’s trickle-down effect. “Celebrities should also talk about there being a right time for these treatments. A lot of trends go viral, and the younger generation think they need them prematurely,” he continues, pointing to Bella Hadid, who revealed in a 2022 interview with Vogue that she regretted getting a nose job aged 14 — she thought she would “have grown into”.
“The popularisation of choice feminism and that train of thought that a woman making a personal choice is inherently feminist, or is at least empowered, has corrupted our way to critically think about what benefits women as a community and not singularly,” says Gina Tonic, senior editor of Polyester Zine. “Everyone would prefer someone [who] doesn’t lie, but if either swing of that pendulum lends itself to the glamorisation of an unrealistic beauty standard, what does the commendation of honesty even matter? It feels like a distraction from the bigger picture.”
Radical honesty thrives in a culture overwhelmed by information but starved of action. We’re inundated with analysis — what Phin calls the “glamorous philosopher/digital essayist industrial complex” — but rarely offered a way forward. “Audiences probably just feel like they’re in limbo, and that there’s no point in challenging anything or caring. Rather than it being framed as, ‘Celebrities may influence people to get plastic surgery so we should organise against it, here’s step one,’ it’s more like, ‘Celebs are 100 per cent influencing people to get plastic surgery, so here’s a beautifully written substack article about why it’s complicated and futile. Re-share to demonstrate your intellect and acknowledgement of this societal issue,’” says Phin. “Because these ideas come from commentators, not organisers, they’re often depoliticised, designed to provoke thought rather than change.”
To avoid getting swept into an uncontrollable discourse spiral, brands need to match transparency with tangible action, she says. It’s why Patagonia’s ‘Don’t Buy This Jacket’ campaign still resonates years later. The brand was radically honest about the environmental cost of consumerism — pointing out the water, carbon and waste footprint of a single jacket — while directly encouraging people to buy less, repair more and participate in their Worn Wear programme. The message sparked conversation, but it also gave people something to do. Similarly, this week, Huda Beauty celebrated becoming 100 per cent independent by donating AED 1,000,000 ($272,300) to a deserving charity selected by followers in the comment section. The brand emphasised it had “always been about more than beauty — it’s about purpose, passion and making an impact”. After an outpouring of suggestions, Huda Beauty chose to donate the funds to UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees).
This move followed a series of outspoken posts by founder Huda Kattan on the Gaza crisis, where she made it clear she would “not be intimidated” and was “willing to risk [her] entire business”. By being radically honest – open about her stance, the personal stakes and the backlash – then providing a clear path forward (the charity donation decided by fans), Huda Beauty avoided a spiral of discourse and instead channeled honest outrage into collective momentum.
How should brands be radically honest
For fashion critic Ryan Yip, radical honesty hinges on established cultural boundaries. “Cosmetic surgeries were once frowned upon, but as it gets more accessible — as easy as walking into a pub — people are growing tired of the obvious lies when people try to deflect or deny they’ve had work done. So, embracing it now becomes a form of ‘take the power back’, owning up to it, and in exchange, people respect this honesty,” he says. “However, in my opinion, it’s solely based on where the cultural boundaries lie, rather than the person’s own volition to own up to it when society isn’t ready for this level of transparency.”
When brands are radically honest about topics that fall outside of accepted cultural norms, it can backfire. Take the case of Duolingo: last month, co-founder Luis von Ahn shared a company-wide email on LinkedIn announcing that the business was going “AI-first”. He explicitly stated that Duolingo would “gradually stop using contractors to do work that AI can handle”, and that “headcount will only be given if a team cannot automate more of their work”. The post triggered immediate backlash across social media, ultimately leading the company to wipe its entire TikTok account. “Every tech company is doing similar things,” von Ahn told the Financial Times, “but we were open about it.” The backlash, he said, was “unexpected”.
In 2025, how brands deliver honesty is just as important as what they say. Radical honesty tends to resonate more when it feels conversational and unscripted. “Kylie Jenner’s decision to respond to a question about her surgery in the TikTok comment section worked not just because she admitted the truth, but because she did it in a space that felt native and relaxed,” says Billion Dollar Boy’s Walters. “A highly produced brand statement is unlikely to have the same emotional resonance as an honest, human-sounding social media post.”
Partnering with creators can also help brands communicate sensitive or complex messages in a way that feels organic and trustworthy. “It adds credibility — especially when that creator is trusted by their community,” Walters adds. Brands should also consider engaging with audiences in informal spaces like TikTok and be ready to continue the conversation beyond the initial post.
For instance, Elf Cosmetics recently tried to strike an honest tone with its followers: “Dear elfies, let’s talk. We know things are tight rn, and the fact that you keep choosing us? Major feels. Not gonna lie, inflation and tariffs are hitting us hard,” the brand wrote on Instagram. The post sparked mixed reactions. “Cute corporate greed,” one user commented. Another added: “‘Inflation and tariffs are hitting us hard’? You mean you just spent $1 billion to acquire Rhode and now you’re asking your young customers — many of them teenagers — to essentially eat the cost.”
“If you’re going to commit to transparency, commit fully. Know your weak spots. Name them before someone else does,” says Kearney of FKA Haeckels. “And have a real plan to improve. But remember, you’re still running a business. Transparency isn’t chaos; it must be strategic.” Mistakes, she adds, are inevitable. “You may lose customers. You may get it wrong. But hold your ground. That initial dip? It eventually curves upwards — and when it does, the momentum is stronger because it’s built on something authentic.”
“Honesty is only powerful when it’s metabolised into trust — when it reveals the ‘why’ behind a brand’s action,” says Rose Coffey, senior foresight analyst at The Future Laboratory. “Too often, brands mistake disclosure for dialogue. Without purpose or preparedness, vulnerability becomes performance — commodified at the expense of customer value, and potentially risking credibility.”
And above all, radical honesty must be a long-term strategy, not a one-time crisis response. “It’s not something you can whip out in an emergency,” Walters says. “If you haven’t been honest in small moments, it’s hard to be trusted in the big ones.” Though before brands can go transparent, they must earn the right to do so. “If your image has been overly polished, you need to start softening the edges — showing your human side — before dropping a bombshell,” Walters advises. “Try testing messages in casual formats: creator content, comments, TikTok replies. Think of it as sticking your toe in the water before diving in.”
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