The Met Gala took place earlier this month. It was a big deal considering it was cancelled altogether in 2020 and then postponed to September last year. Therefore, this was the first time in 3 years that the Met Gala took place on its usual scheduled time slot, which is the first Monday of May. But just like always, the Met Gala was undoubtedly an over-the-top event. Tom Ford even said that the Met Gala is a Halloween party for rich people, and to be completely honest, he’s not wrong.
The Kardashians made huge headlines all thanks to this event. It was Kourtney and Khloe Kardashians first time attending the event in all these years even though their sisters had attended the show for years. This year marked the first time that all the sisters, as well their momager, Kris Jenner, were all in attendance. Kourtney and her fiancé, Travis Barker, made headlines as they were criticized for their inappropriate and over-the-top PDA. Kylie Jenner wore a weird looking wedding, as well as a cap worn backwards on her head. It turned out, though, that her costume actually a tribute to designer Virgil Abloh, who sadly passed away in November 2021 after a private cancer battle. The dress that she wore was inspired by the final couture gown that he designed before his passing.
The person who got the most headlines at the Met Gala was none other than Kim Kardashian. She came to the event with her boyfriend, comedian Pete Davidson. Her relationship was not what her biggest headline in the news, though. It was her wearing Marilyn Monroe’s legendary dress that she wore when she sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to John F. Kennedy to the Met Gala. Kardashian only wore it when she entered the event, and quickly changed into a replica dress once she made her grand entrance. She then admitted that she lost 16 pounds in three weeks to fit into the dress because the dress couldn’t be altered. A lot of people had opinions about Kim’s choice to diet, including Lili Reinhart, who stars on ‘Riverdale, and Bethenny Frankel, a reality TV star who also had her own talk show for a short little while.
Reinhart had this to say:
“To walk on a red carpet and do an interview where you say how starving you are…because you haven’t eaten carbs in the last month…all to fit in a f***ing dress?” Reinhart wrote on her Instagram Story. “So wrong. So f***ed on 100s of levels. To openly admit to starving yourself for the sake of the Met Gala. When you know very well that millions of young men and women are looking up to you and listening to your every word. The ignorance is other-worldly and disgusting.”
“Please stop supporting these stupid, harmful celebrities whose entire image revolves around their bodies. I am not generally an angry person but I swear to god, the toxicity of this industry really gets to me sometimes and I have to do my little Instagram-Story rants to release my rage.”
Frankel had this to say:
“So, regarding the Met Gala drastic weight loss by Kim Kardashian, if you need to lose weight for a role, it’s your body, your choice.”
“But when you are the most photographed famous person to walk this planet, who young women and mothers look to everything that you do and wear and say… to publicly say that you lost 16 pounds in two weeks to fit into a dress… the most superficial of reasons, is all wrong. Young girls hang on every word and effort and lip gloss. And it’s incorrect,”
“What we look like is the most unimportant thing in the world… Young girls are currently googling what the 16 LB weight loss diet is used to fit into prom dresses.”
“To deceptively post pictures that is not what your body actually looks like. To filter your body to the point that it doesn’t look like what your body actually looks like is deceptive, aka lying.”
Here’s my take on this:
How has this become such a big deal? It seems to me that Kim Kardashian is just consistently being targeted and judged for anything she does or doesn’t do because she’s famous for ‘absolutely nothing.’. It’s somewhat true as she got her start as a privileged kid, started working as Paris Hilton’s assistant, and got herself and her family famous by releasing her sex tape. No matter what though, she’s worked hard at no matter what business venture or career path she works on. You can’t deny that she’s a hard-working woman.
Losing 16 pounds in three weeks in order to fit Marilyn Monroe’s dress is just the latest example of how hard-working of a woman she is. It was something that she wanted to do, she set a goal for herself, and she achieved that goal. If anything, she should be f*cking proud of herself, especially since not everyone can say they could achieve such a thing no matter how much they tried. It’s not like she’s on a diet culture or advocates for it in any way in her regular life.
Kim Kardashian aside, many women have no choice but to diet for health-related reasons. For Instance, many women who have epilepsy are on the Keto diet because it helps them manage their seizures better. I was on Keto myself for a while too. Will I be judged for it? Maybe, but I don’t care because my health will always come first before the opinions of others. Another example would be women who struggle with PCOS. There are many women out there who struggle with PCOS. Symptoms and outcomes of the hormonal disease include infertility, hair loss, acne, and weight gain. The weight gain can be so horrific that I heard of cases where women have to lose around 200 pounds to make sure they are in a healthy shape. Then there’s emotional eating where people use food as a way to cope with stress. But instead eating healthy foods, they eat things like pizza and junk food because it’s the only foods they recognize as stress relief. In their case, dieting is a necessity. Are we just going to tell them to keep on eating the way that they do when doctors are telling them they need to lose weight if they want to live?
There’s a big difference between the diet culture, eating disorders, staying fit and making sure you’re in a healthy shape and state of mind. Those who are advocates for any of or all those things really need to understand the difference between them before they speak up. Food is a very interesting factor that people women specifically, intake in their daily lives. Or lives somehow revolve around food. Whether it’s in a healthy way or not, it doesn’t matter. It still has an impact on us. Knowing our balance, limits, and boundaries when it comes to food is the key to living the healthiest life that we can. At the end of the day, no matter what we do, our health is our wealth.
Sign up to our newsletter if you want to see more content from The Graceful Boon! By signing up to our newsletter, you'll get an even more in-depth content from yours truly, Stacie Kiselman, who's our Graceful Boon, that you won't want to miss out on.