Remember when Kim Kardashian wore Marilyn Monroe’s dress? Here’s the whole story
Remember Kim Kardashian’s debacle with the Marilyn Monroe dress?
No? We’ll refresh your memory: The reality star was dead set on wearing the big screen icon’s famed gown to the Met Gala in NYC back in May.
A month before the haute soiree, the SKIMS mogul trekked all the way to Orlando, Florida, to Ripley’s Believe it or Not! museum to borrow the so-called “Happy Birthday” outfit that Monroe wore for President John F. Kennedy’s party in 1962. Kardashian traveled with her then bf, SNL comic Pete Davidson; the two have since split.
Historical preservationists were outraged when Kardashian showed up in the thing on the red carpet, and were even more distressed when before and after pictures showed the relic was damaged. Crystals from the famed frock by Oscar-winning costume designer Jean Louis were gone, the back zipper, ripped.
Turns out Kardashian had quite a time getting into the dress, acquired from a Julien’s Auctions event in 2016 for $4.8 million. In Thursday’s episode of Hulu’s “The Kardashians,” we see the good, the bad and the really ugly of what went on behind the scenes at Ripley’s.
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Kardashian is seen trying on the sparkler, and it won’t even go over her hips. The mother of four eventually lost enough weight, a total of 16 pounds, to slip into it.
“I’ve Googled her measurements. The width of my shoulders and my body makes me a shape shifter,” the 42-year-old says on the streaming show. “I can squeeze into anything.”
As for the damages the dress reportedly sustained, the rips and tears were already there when the museum received it, Ripley’s said in a statement after all the negative press.
“This is not surprising given how delicate the material is,” reads a report Ripley’s received after the gown arrived in 2017. “There is puckering at the back by the hooks and eyes,” among other problems.
Fun fact: The struggle was real for Monroe also. The sex symbol, 36, had to be sewn into it before the televised appearance, three weeks before her death.
Another fun fact: The dress is back on display at the Central Florida facility Nov. 19 through Dec. 4.
This story was originally published November 3, 2022 at 4:07 PM.
