There are many things I’ll never have in common with Kim Kardashian West.

For starters, she drives a Ferrari, while I catch the bus. She has her own iconic reality television show, while I have Instagram Stories. She has millions of dollars in the bank and I have a bowl of spare coins at my front door. She has a love of nude selfies, whereas I spend large periods of my days dreaming of how great living a life in a slightly more chic version of a nun’s habit would be.

But, in a turn I didn’t expect this week, it just so happens that we have one major thing in common other than a love of Kanye West, and it’s cellulite.

Or, more specifically, bum cellulite.

Released around the world on Tuesday were images of the 36-year-old on holiday in Mexico with her older sister Kourtney Kardashian, and in them, we see Kardashian West loudly and proudly displaying her “flawed” behind (Piers Morgan’s description of her assets, not mine), wearing a g-string bikini bottom and smiling gleefully towards the cameras.

(Mamamia does not publish paparazzi images. As such, those wishing to look can find the photos here.)

And while it’s not known if Kardashian West staged the paparazzi photos, it’s clear she knew about the photographer’s presence and that she was more than okay with it because in some images she can be seen looking directly into the lens and smiling.

And for someone who has built an empire on her flawlessness and unattainable beauty, this is a big deal. It marks a new era in the public entity that is Kim Kardashian West.

Listen: Of all the Kardashian shows out there, The Binge has a big problem with this one. Post continues… 

Since being released, countless media outlets have attached shameful headlines to the pictures and many a social commentator has had their say on what we should think.

Discussing the images on Good Morning Britain on Tuesday, host Susanna Reid said, ““I think we should celebrate cellulite, it’s a fact of life for, I’d say, 90 percent of women.”

But the show’s guest, Piers Morgan did not agree.

“Why would we celebrate it? We put up with it, tolerate it, but not accept it,” Morgan said. “Flaws should not be celebrated.”

Messages like these are common to women. We are constantly reminded that if are not perfect, we should cover up, be quiet and apologise when and where necessary. We should not, as Morgan and society more broadly would like to remind us, be seen to be animated, happy with our lives, enjoying our bodies and what they offer us, or unapologetically flaunting said imperfections.

But it’s precisely because of this exhausted and hateful rhetoric that we needed to see these pictures so badly.

Back in 2008, while Kardashian West still had just one surname and was in the early stages of making her rise to fame, Paris Hilton famously described her then best friend‘s bum as  “gross,” adding, “It reminds me of cottage cheese inside a big trash bag.”

Clearly, Hilton’s words cut deep because within months Kardashian was slimmer, more toned than ever and devoid of all cellulite.

In the years that followed, Kardashian West frequently talked about her gruelling workout sessions and promoted diets. After giving birth to her two children, the tech mogul spoke candidly about feeling the pressure to get back her pre-baby body and put those who had body shamed her in their place.

And eventually, the thing Hilton said disgusted her became Kim’s most iconic trademark. Not as Hilton knew it, though, but rather airbrushed to within an inch of its life and made to look so perfect you could literally balance a champagne glass off of it.

Fast forward nine years on from the cottage cheese comments and the shameful words and photos are back, but this time Kardashian West is older, wiser, and clearly far less inclined to care what people like her former best friend and Piers Morgan think.

And through this, Kim Kardashian West has potentially become more real and relatable to us all than ever before.

Sure, a lot of people don't like her for a lot of different reasons, and that's fine, I get that. I'm not saying she is or should be all and everything to everyone. But through these images, we see a woman who, like many of us mere mortals, has spent the majority of their life not feeling good enough. She's fought internal battles and judged herself more harshly than haters on the internet ever could and has somehow come out the other side and seems to love herself more than ever.

Importantly, it's a battle she's had publicly and never shied away from talking about.

And love her or hate her, how often do women actually get the chance to see someone with such a prolific platform saying they feel great for being something society tells them they're not supposed to be? We all know that the answer is far less than it should be.

Kardashian West waited a while before following up with a response to Morgan's comments.

When she did, though, she simply wrote from her holiday destination, "Oh and as for me you ask? ...I'm just sitting here on the beach with my flawless body."

Which, if you trade in the beach for office swivel chair, is exactly what I'm doing, too.