Featured Image Credit: MarilynMonroeCollection/Today
Topics: Celebrity
Emma Guinness
Unless you've been living under a rock, you'll have likely seen the accusations that Kim Kardashian damaged Marilyn Monroe's 'Happy Birthday, Mr President Dress'.
She borrowed the iconic 1962 gown from Ripley's Believe It or Not! and wore it on the Meta Gala red carpet before changing into a replica. But Kim's now insisted she didn't damage the dress:
The reality star, 41, made the revelation in an interview with TODAY where she said the most shocking thing about wearing the dress was that some people didn't know who Marilyn Monroe was.
She said that the viral images that suggested she'd ruined the dress weren't true.
Advert
“We worked together so well,” she said of working with the museum. “There were handlers in gloves that put it on me.”
The museum itself has also insisted that Kim didn't ruin the dress and that the damage shown in the photographs existed before it came into their possession.
Per a statement on their website, Ripleys wrote that they can ‘can say with confidence' that the images were not a result of damage caused by Kim.
They then shared a statement from 2017 describing the condition of the dress, which Kim herself said she only wore for a few minutes.
It read: “A number of the seams are pulled and worn. This is not surprising given how delicate the material is. There is puckering at the back by the hooks and eyes.”
Ripleys also released a statement at the time of the Met Gala to ensure Monroe fans that the utmost care had been taken to look after the dress.
It read: "Great care was taken to preserve this piece of pop culture history.
"With input from garment conservationists, appraisers, and archivists, the garment’s condition was top priority. Believe It or Not! no alterations were to be made to the dress and Kim even changed into a replica after the red carpet!”
Kim told Vogue that she decided wanted to wear the dress because it was the most American thing she could think of.
"The idea really came to me after the gala in September last year," she told the news outlet. "I thought to myself, what would I have done for the American theme if it had not been the Balenciaga look? What’s the most American thing you can think of? And that’s Marilyn Monroe."
The dress itself became a pop culture phenomenon after it was worn by Marilyn Monroe in 1962 to sing Happy Birthday to the then President Kennedy.