Kim Kardashian Responds to Backlash Over Women in Business Comments

Kim Kardashian is addressing her recent comments about women in business, which have stirred up backlash on social media.

During an interview with Good Morning America on Monday, Kardashian apologized to those who “received” her “get your fucking ass up and work” comments the wrong way, and reveals that her words were taken out of context. The soundbite was shared during an interview with Variety at the top of the month, when the 41-year-old entrepreneur offered the “best advice for women in business.”

“That statement that I said was without questions and conversation around it, and it became a soundbite really with no context,” Kim told Robin Roberts. “In that soundbite, I came off of the notion in the question right before, which was, ‘After 20 years of being in the business, you’re famous for being famous.’ And my whole tone and attitude changed with the previous question that went into that question about, ‘What advice would you give to women.’”

Kim continued, explaining what she intended to say with her advice was supposed to sound something like “having a social media presence and having a reality show does not mean overnight success.” Regardless of it was taken out of context or not, she still offered an apology to those who took it to heart, and clarified that she respects the work women do.

“You have to really work hard to get there even if it might seem like it’s easy, and you can build a really successful business off of social media,” she said. “And you can, if you put in a lot of hard work. And it wasn’t a blanket statement towards women or to feel like I don’t respect the work or think that they don’t work hard. I know that they do. That was taken out of context but I’m really sorry if it was received that way.”

It’s been a big week in headlines for Kardashian, who over the weekend shared a photo of a tattoo that boyfriend Pete Davidson got for her. The ink, posted to her Instagram Stories, reads “my girl is a lawyer,” which Kim told Ellen DeGeneres was her “favorite” tattoo of Pete’s.​​​​

“Yeah, he has a few tattoos, a few cute ones that he got,” Kim said. “But the ‘Kim’ one isn’t a tattoo, it’s actually a branding because he wanted to do something that was really different. First tattoo he got, I was like, ‘Oh, so cute, thank you! Oh my God!’ Second, whatever, I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s so cute.’ But that’s what tattoo people do, right? They get tattoos of what’s going on in their life.”