Kim Kardashian's latest comments on overworking are yet another installment in her apparent quest to portray herself as someone who really gets her ass up and works.
In the latest episode of The Kardashians, Kim is filmed half-asleep in bed on the morning of the Skims popup in New York in May of this year. Her eyelashes looked immaculate. "I overslept, I've never done this in my entire career. I am so tired, and my day's back to back to back. It's insane," she explained in a voiceover.
Kim then appeared on the Today show, where she ate an ice cream to wake herself up. "I'm still on West Coast time," she added.
Slightly more concerning was that Kim claimed to have memory lapses due to her exhaustion outside the popup. "I looked on TikTok and saw me walking up to people, fans that I know and love, telling them all of our Skims secrets, how we're launching men's soon. Actually no recollection of this," she said with a smile, while footage of her greeting fans with slurred speech played.
"I had no idea that I stopped at the Tiffany's store and was posting all about it," she added. "Did I really go? It felt like a dream. This whole morning has been a complete, foggy dream."
The day finished with a midnight acting class for American Horror Story. "My mom sent me a text saying, 'I've seen your schedule, and it's giving me anxiety. You have to slow down.' But there's not much more I can cut down because I've committed to things," Kim said.
Indeed, later on Kris said to Kim that she does "worry" that Kim is "overwhelmed" and will burn out. "I will say American Horror Story put me over the edge," Kim agreed, noting that perhaps "imposter syndrome" drives her to overcommit.
With this, I am reminded of Kim's copious prior comments about her work ethic. She's described herself as a "workaholic" on multiple occasions, even saying in one Season 2 episode, "I just don’t get it. I just don’t get why being a workaholic is a bad thing."
Then there was Kim's infamous "get your fucking ass up and work" line as part of her "advice for women in business," which also featured the ill-fated words, "It seems like nobody wants to work these days."
Plus, there's the time Kim got into a literal brawl with Kourtney over their different work ethics.
But there's another moment that I want to talk about: Kim's drastic weight loss for the Marilyn look at the Met Gala. Kim proudly emphasized the work needed to (sort of) fit into the archival gown, citing everything from sauna suits to being impossibly "strict" with her diet. She later said that the diet required to achieve the look caused her to have a flare-up of psoriatic arthritis so bad that she couldn't move her hands. She also maintained that said weight loss was "healthy." I bring this up because the flow seems the same: 1) Something objectively unhealthy is done, but 2) It's not that bad, guys! It's fine! Nothing needs to change!
To be generous, I get why Kim has cornered herself into this — she was widely mocked for many years for having "no talents," so the elevation and emphasis of her work ethic make some sense as a business branding technique and a personal response.
That being said, at a time when the cost of living is soaring, regular people are struggling to pay for the basic necessities, let alone the toll that childcare takes when people have to work multiple jobs, watching a billionaire struggle with taking too much on might not be the "relatable" flex Kim might be going for.
It's because of all these factors that, at least to me, the glorification of the extreme work and grind mindset feels more alien than ever. As someone who's had phases of some pretty gnarly burnout over the past few years, I worry about the normalization of workaholism seen over the past few seasons of The Kardashians. Hot take: Sleep is good! Do whatever you want with your life, but hey, if you're getting literal memory lapses from your nonessential work, maybe don't just make a big joke about it!
