Kim Kardashian says her biggest Met Gala regret wasn’t Marilyn Monroe’s dress
Kim Kardashian is finally revealing the real regret behind her headline-making 2022 Met Gala appearance — and it has nothing to do with Marilyn Monroe’s historic gown. In a new episode of The Kardashians, Kim admits that bleaching her hair platinum to match Monroe was the misstep that still haunts her. She now believes the blond look was unnecessary, distracting, and even worked against the elegant homage she intended. Kim shared that she has since experimented with photoshopped versions of alternative hairstyles, including a sleek dark look she now thinks would have paired more powerfully with the iconic dress. Despite the intense backlash she faced for wearing Monroe’s fragile gown, Kim says her frustration has always centered on her styling choice, not the controversy. Four years later, the color of her slicked-back bun remains the part of the night she would redo.
In the post-credits confessional of episode six of The Kardashians, Kim detailed the minute process of getting ready for the Met Gala and said that bleaching her hair blond to fit Monroe was a mistake. She says she now believes the blond look was unnecessary and even distracting. According to her, the intention behind the look was to pay homage to an American icon, not to transform herself into a Marilyn duplicate. “Everyone told me, ‘Don’t do Marilyn hair, you’re going to look like a wax figure,’” Kim recalls. Despite the warnings, she went fully platinum, a decision she is still second-guessing years later.
Kim said she has since photoshopped her hair in every which way, playing around with what the whole thing might have looked like if she had gone another direction. She even pulled out the images she'd created for producers to compare-a classic Marilyn-style curled blonde look to a dark, sleek Jackie Kennedy-inspired hairstyle. Looking back, Kim says the darker hair would have offset the dramatic dress more elegantly and also created a modern interpretation rather than an outright impersonation of Monroe. “Either one of these would have worked,” she said, still visibly torn over the choice.
This year's theme — “In America: An Anthology of Fashion” — drove Kim to look at pieces deeply rooted in American cultural history, leading her to request access to the legendary gown owned by Ripley’s Believe It or Not!. The idea of wearing such a delicate archival piece was immediately controversial as critics accused her of risking damage to a priceless artifact. Ripley’s immediately denied that the dress had suffered any harm amidst the backlash that was highly fueled by claims from museum professionals and online skeptics. Kim took off the original dress and then changed into a replica for the party inside. Notwithstanding all the furor on the dress itself, according to Kim, her abiding exasperation has solely been with her hair decision and not at all with any criticism regarding the gown. All that vociferous public outrage-accusations, think pieces, memes-hasn't drowned out her more internal reflection about style. Four and a half years later, what she still rewinds in her head is not the controversy but the color of her slicked-back Met Gala bun. According to Kim, it was ironic that at an event that called for perfection, the one thing that she had full control over was actually her biggest regret.