Kim Kardashian has given fans a behind the scenes look at her fitting into Marilyn Monroe’s iconic Happy Birthday Mr President dress, which she squeezed into for this year’s Met Gala.
The Skims founder took the Hulu cameras to Ripley’s Believe it Or Not museum in Florida in the latest episode of The Kardashians, after she had dropped 10 lbs to fit into the dress.
This involved a sugar and carbohydrate-free diet, running on the treadmill and wearing a sauna suit twice a day.
She later w ore the nude sequined dress to the 2022 Met Gala in New York, where she walked the red carpet with boyfriend Pete Davidson.
Kim told the cameras as she arrived at the museum: “After my mum's conversation, they've agreed to let me try on the dress one last time. If it fits, I'm going to the Met. If it doesn't, I'm not going to the Met.”
Kim admitted to being nervous to try on the gown and during the fitting the reality show revealed the difficulty in manoeuvring the mum-of-four’s infamous behind into the dress, which was made-to-measure for the Gentleman Prefer Blondes star in 1962.
The Kardashians episode showed the surgeon-like precision it took for a team of gloved Ripley’s staff to squeeze Kim into the vintage gown as they tugged it up her legs.
Kim said: “I've been working my ass off to see my vision come to life. I will be crushed if this doesn't pay off.
“It's hard because you can't shimmy into this dress the way I normally would. That's the difficult part. It just has to glide up.”
Referring to her British hair stylist, Kim said: “Chris Appleton was like, ‘We didn't fly all the way over here for nothing’.”
The cameras then closed in on the beauty expert’s gloved hands as he pushed Kim’s derriere, clad in a pair of beige Skims, into the dress – before it finally climbed over her voluptuous hips.
Kim explained: “[Chris] lifted up my butt in my Skims, repositioned my shapewear and then it went up.”
An ecstatic Kim celebrated, saying: “Oh my God. It fits. We can maybe make it. I'm so nervous,” before she called mum Kris Jenner to show her the final result.
Following the Met Gala, Kim was criticised by a Marilyn Monroe collector who claimed that ‘permanent damage’ has been caused to the gown.
Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! said at the time that ‘great care was taken to preserve this piece of pop culture history’.
A representative added: “With input from garment conservationists, appraisers, and archivists, the garment’s condition was top priority … no alterations were to be made to the dress and Kim even changed into a replica after the red carpet!”
The Kardashians season two is streaming on Disney+ in the UK and Hulu in the US.
