Kim Kardashian changed her diet as part of her preparation for the 2022 Met Gala in May, and she says it took a toll on her health.
The reality star and fashion icon is a plant-based eater, but began consuming meat in order to lose 16 pounds in three weeks to fit into Marilyn Monroe’s vintage dress for the event. The switch in diet caused her to have a psoriasis flare, she said.
“Psoriasis broke out over my body and I got psoriatic arthritis so I couldn’t really move my hands,” she told Allure in its August issue cover story. “It was really painful, and I had to go to a rheumatologist who put me on a steroid. I was freaking out. I cut out the meat again, and it’s calmed down.”
Kardashian was reportedly first diagnosed with psoriasis in 2011. Since then, she’s been frank in interviews and on social media about her experience with the disease, which causes skin cells to multiply up to 10 times faster than normal, resulting in red, scaly patches.
Roughly 7.5 million people in the U.S. have psoriasis, according to the American Academy of Dermatology. About 25 to 30 percent of people with psoriasis also experience psoriatic arthritis, which causes joint pain and inflammation.
Kardashian faced a flurry of criticism after appearing at the Met Gala in the dress, first worn by Monroe to President John F. Kennedy’s 45th birthday celebration in 1962 and now owned by Ripley’s Believe It or Not! museum. Some called her dieting “extremely dangerous,” and others argued it was “regressive messaging.”
Other critics accused Kardashian of damaging the dress after images surfaced online that appeared to show stretched fabric and missing rhinestones ― an allegation Ripley’s Believe It or Not! denied.
Kardashian addressed the weight loss criticisms in her Allure chat.
“If I was starving and doing it really unhealthy, I would say that, of course, that’s not a good message,” she said. “But I had a nutritionist, I had a trainer. I have never drunk more water in my life. I don’t see the criticism for other people when they lost weight for roles — they are [considered] geniuses for their craft.”
“There are so many things out there that are so not accurate and not true,” she continued. “I think I’ve always just been the underdog.”