The devil puts in a lot of effort, but Kris Jenner puts in much more.
We’re aware that Kim Kardashian’s donning Marilyn Monroe’s famous “Happy Birthday” outfit at the 2022 Met Gala is still being discussed. The latest episode of The Kardashians on Hulu gave us additional background information about how Kim came into possession of the precious piece of pop culture history, and she has her mother Kris Jenner to thank for it. It’s the (slightly contentious) tale that just won’t die.
Kim claims that the famous gown’s owner, the Florida-based Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum, refused to allow her wear it on the red carpet or even try it on until her mother intervened. Kim revealed in the episode, “They weren’t going to let me try it on – until Kris Jenner phoned.” (They may have hesitated to offer her the clothing, but where was that energy when they handed her a strand of Marilyn’s hair so quickly?)
Back to the dress, though. We don’t have all the facts of the interaction between Kim, the Met, and Marilyn since Kris wouldn’t reveal how she made it happen. One of Kris’s guiding principles is “You know what I say: If someone says no, you’re talking to the wrong person.” In the instance of the “Happy Birthday” outfit, she pulled it off, and the rest is history.
This season has been largely consumed with the dress and Kim’s struggle to make it work. Everyone is aware of the severe diet and training regimen she followed to lose weight so she could fit into Marilyn’s custom-made Jean Louis gown, and we even got to see some of it on the family reality programme. It’s intriguing, though, that Kim’s enormous star power and the prominent news conference wouldn’t be enough to convince the museum on their own.
But the real question here is: What else can Kris Jenner achieve if she can persuade a museum to lend her daughter one of history’s most famous costumes, which sold for $4.8 million at auction in 2016? It’s ominous to even consider it.
