Kylie Jenner Responds to GoFundMe Backlash Over Injured MUA

Kylie Jenner is clearing the air on her GoFundMe controversy ... she says she was just trying to help an old friend pay medical bills and his family's glad she did.

The billionaire broke her silence Monday after catching tons of heat over the weekend for promoting a GoFundMe for celeb makeup artist Samuel Rauda. Lots of folks dragged her for only donating $5,000, while pushing others to make their own contributions.

Kylie confirms what we first reported ... Sam worked with her back in the day, and he's friends with her current MUA, Ariel.

KJ says she doesn't have a personal relationship with Sam anymore and called Ariel to find out what happened to him. Kylie says when she learned of Sam's accident, she went to his GFM and saw it was at $6,000 so she kicked in $5k to send it over the original benchmark.

Kylie says she posted the link to the GFM on her IG stories to make more people aware of it. It was all a good thing, and she doesn't know why people took it the wrong way.

She says Sam's family reached out to her through Ariel and they're "very appreciative of all the donations, prayers and love towards Sam."

Kylie's encouraging folks to stay positive and keep Sam and his fam in their thoughts and prayers.