Not having it! Karlie Kloss was left unimpressed with Project Runway contestant Tyler Neasloney after he seemingly shaded the supermodel by mentioning her connection to “the Kushners,” her husband Joshua Kushner’s family.
In the Thursday, January 2, episode, the contenders were tasked with creating a custom look for Kloss, who is a host and judge on the series, to wear to a CFDA event in Paris. Neasloney, 29, designed an outfit that was comprised of upcycled garments purchased from Goodwill.
“I cannot see Karlie wearing this anywhere, honestly,” Brandon Maxwell, a fellow judge, said to Neasloney. The contestant quickly fired back, “Not even to dinner with the Kushners?”
The former Victoria’s Secret model, 27, dropped her jaw and tilted her head in shock, and Neasloney’s competitors were equally surprised by his jab. The New Jersey native, however, pointed out that Kushner, 34, was Kloss’ “husband.”
Kloss reiterated that the Kushners had nothing to do with Neasloney’s assignment. “Um … I was going to Paris,” she said in response. “That was your challenge here. Keep it to the challenge.”
Neasloney continued to defend himself by arguing that he “could see” Kloss wearing his creation “at some point,” but the Kode With Klossy creator stated that what he designed wasn’t what she “asked” for. “The fabrics are poor choices. I think they look cheap,” she quipped.
“The pockets are, kind of, ill-placed,” she continued. “And if this is your aesthetic, then that’s that. But this was about my aesthetic and the influence of my stylist. You really missed the mark here on all accounts.”
one of the #ProjectRunway designers invoked “The Kushners” last night while defending his design and this is the face Karlie Kloss made.
He was then eliminated from the show pic.twitter.com/KefAGTV0v5
— Jarett Wieselman (@JarettSays) January 3, 2020
Neasloney was later eliminated from the competition. After he was cut, he apologized to Kloss by stating that he had “no hidden agenda, no meaning, no nothing like that.”
Kloss tied the knot with Kushner in October 2018, three months after announcing their engagement. The duo held a second ceremony, which was attended by engaged couple Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom, in Wyoming in June 2019.
Joshua, a businessman, is the younger brother of Jared Kushner, who is married to Ivanka Trump. In the March 2019 book Kushner Inc., author Vicky Ward shared never-before-heard information on the Kushner family, including Joshua’s parents’ apparent dislike for Kloss. The tell-all book claimed that Joshua’s father, Charles Kushner, told him that Kloss was “not the right person” for him and the youngest Kushner son “absorbed his father’s abuse in silence.”
In July 2019, Kloss revealed that marrying into the Kushner family has “been hard” for her due to her Democratic political affiliation. “I choose to focus on the values that I share with my husband, and those are the same liberal values that I was raised with and that have guided me throughout my life,” she told British Vogue at the time.
Project Runway airs on Bravo on Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET.
