The trajectory of Australia’s globally adored heartthrob Jacob Elordi has been nothing short of meteoric.
Fresh off dominating Hollywood with Euphoria and recently playing the coveted lead in Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights adaptation, Elordi is undoubtedly Australia’s golden boy.
But a shadow has officially been cast over his glittering ascent.
Fears are mounting among his fiercely loyal fanbase following Elordi’s public displays of affection with new girlfriend, Kendall Jenner.
In the hyper-online world of celebrity culture, stepping out with a member of reality television’s most powerful dynasty comes with a notorious warning — the Kardashian curse.
For the uninitiated, the Kardashian curse is the belief that the Kardashian family happen to jinx all of their ex-partners, whose lives fall into disarray during and after splitting from them.
While it sounds like pure internet folklore, the post-breakup lives of certain Kardashian exes make a compelling case for believers.
Elordi is not the only one currently susceptible to the curse with Kim Kardashian reportedly dating F1 legend Lewis Hamilton, Kylie Jenner dating Timothée Chalamet, Khloe Kardashian rumoured to be with Michael B. Jordan and Kourtney Kardashian married to Travis Barker.
Even the inner circle has acknowledged the phenomenon.
As Kylie Jenner said herself: “Their life kind of just goes downhill after that.”
Kendall Jenner is well aware of the whisper network — and she is laughing all the way to the bank because of it.
In a brilliant marketing move for a Fanatics Sportsbook Super Bowl commercial, she leaned directly into the viral internet rumour.
Draped in a luxury robe inside a lavish beachside mansion, Kendall sips tea from a rose-embellished cup that hilariously wilts the moment it touches her lips.
“Haven’t you heard?” Kendall asks in the ad. “The internet says I’m cursed.”
Walking through a hallway lined with portraits of her high-profile ex-boyfriends, she continues while casually tossing a lit match into a basket of NBA jerseys: “Any basketball player who dates me kind of hits a rough patch. While the world has been talking about it, I’ve been betting on it. How else do you think I could afford all of this? Modelling?”
She takes a dive into a gorgeous swimming pool, cheekily noting it was funded by when “basketball boyfriend one missed the playoffs,” before delivering the ultimate punchline: “Kardashian curse . . . it’s not even my last name.”
She repeated the mockery during an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, openly laughing off the theory despite the fact that, for many of her sisters’ exes, the proof is very much in the pudding.
While the internet initially focused on how the family causes bad luck, particularly regarding athletes who date the sisters, the ill effects of the alleged curse seem to have spread to any significant others, no matter their profession.
Take Kylie’s current actor beau, Chalamet.
The indie darling started dating the beauty mogul in January 2023, and the cracks are already showing.
In February, the previously popular Hollywood actor faced major backlash and online cancellation from the performing arts community after saying he wouldn’t want to work in ballet or opera because “no one cares about this anymore”.
The bad luck culminated at the 98th Academy awards, where Chalamet lost the best actor award to Michael B. Jordan.
The loss came as a huge shock as Chalamet was tipped to be a shoo-in to take home the 24-karat gold-plated bronze statuette.
While Elordi is evidently prepared to risk it all, a look back at the trail of destruction left in the wake of America’s most famous sisters reveals why fans are so terrified.
Whether Elordi can break the internet’s favourite hex or become the next cautionary tale in the Kardashian playbook remains to be seen.
Reggie Bush
Before dating Kim Kardashian in 2007, Reggie Bush’s future in football looked bright.
He won the Heisman Trophy and was the number two overall pick of the 2006 NFL Draft.
The couple was together for two years before Bush decided he did not to want to be part of the Kardashian clan and called it quits.
Since then, his rushing numbers declined, and he became the first running back in NFL history to retire with negative yardage.
Lamar Odom
Former Los Angeles Laker Lamar Odom was at the peak of his career when he met Khloe Kardashian in 2009.
After dating for about a month, the two got hitched. He was soon a regular on Keeping Up with the Kardashians, and the newlyweds even had a spin-off show, Khloe & Lamar.
But all was not well behind the scenes. In 2011, Odom’s cousin, Curtis Smith, died. Just a week later, Odom was involved in a serious car accident in which his driver struck and killed a 15-year-old boy.
By 2012, Odom was plagued by reports of heavy partying and alleged infidelity, and Kardashian filed for divorce the following year.
Odom continued his downward spiral into drug addiction, and in 2015 he was found unconscious in a Las Vegas brothel.
James Harden
Then Houston Rocket James Harden refers to 2015 as the “worst year of his life.” That was the year he dated Khloe Kardashian for eight months. He said the scrutiny he was under left him unfocused; he endured a thoroughly mediocre season and the team plunged in its standings.
Harden later reflected on the intense spotlight: “I didn’t like all the attention. I feel like it was for no reason. I wasn’t getting anything out of it except my name out there and my face out there, and I don’t need that. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but it wasn’t me. I don’t need pictures of myself when I’m driving my car. Who cares? What shoes am I wearing? Who cares? Where am I eating? Who cares? It was unnecessary stuff that I think trickled down to my teammates. I had to eliminate that.”
Scott Disick
Scott Disick, Kourtney Kardashian’s former flame and father to Mason, Penelope, and Reign, was so convinced he was a victim of the Kardashian curse that he sought out a psychic to confirm his beliefs.
The consultation was the basis for a 2016 Keeping Up With The Kardashians episode. He was told “a negative energy is following you around. Everything you try to do, you tend to have many obstacles in front of you. To answer your question, I would probably say you do have a curse.”
During his tenure on KUWTK, Disick’s parents died within a few months of each other. He’s also had his share of addiction issues, which have been well-documented on the show.
Kanye West
Kim Kardashian’s former husband Kanye West has had some very public struggles.
At the end of 2016, he suffered a breakdown that landed him in the hospital under a psychiatric hold.
West and his wife split in 2021, with their divorce settled in November 2022. That same year, West also drew major public criticism for his antisemitic statements — losing his sponsorship with Adidas, among many others.
West’s friendships and work partnerships have broken since with fellow rapper Jay-Z and wife Beyonce being just one example of A-listers who refuse to work with him or anyone who has a relationship with him.
Tyga
The union between Kylie and Tyga was arguably doomed from the beginning, as a then 17-year-old Kylie was dating the man of Kim Kardashian’s then-best friend, Blac Chyna.
While Kylie would go on to be a billionaire, Tyga was often struggling with money — let’s not forget the time in 2016 when a repo man took his Ferrari away for missing “a couple of payments” on his lease.
In August 2016, Tyga settled a $480,000 lawsuit with a former landlord over back rent, while a jeweller pursued legal action after the rapper allegedly failed to pay him for the $200,000 worth of merchandise he was said to have purchased in 2013.
Come 2020, he was locked in another legal battle over a rental property which he was said to have damaged, though he categorically denied it.
A lot of his songs released post-breakup were deemed a ‘flop’ which is yet another reason people deemed him to be a victim of the curse.
Tristan Thompson
Cleveland Cavalier Tristan Thompson and Khloe Kardashian first got together in 2016 and some fans blame the dreaded Kardashian curse for Cleveland’s loss in the 2017 NBA finals.
ESPN analyst Jalen Rose famously stated on-air: “I want to say what everybody’s thinking. There are three things in life that are certain to me: Father Time, gravity, and the curse of the Kardashians. Tristan Thompson had zero points in two of the three (Finals) games.”
Ben Simmons
At the end of 2018, Aussie basketball export Ben Simmons was capping a campaign that netted him rookie of the year and was the source of tremendous excitement in Philadelphia and the whole league.
Then he began his relationship with Kendall Jenner.
The couple split two years later and what followed was a bad playoff series which changed the trajectory of the Philadelphia 76ers franchise, Ben Simmons’ career, and probably his entire life.
Simmons eventually stopped playing competitive basketball following the 2024-2025 NBA season.
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