A woman who claims to have been employed as an editor ‘on the Kardashian apps’ said she could ‘only afford groceries from the 99 cents store’ at the time.
Kim Kardashian has come under intense fire this week after she revealed her controversial ‘business advice’ in a wide-ranging interview with Variety.
‘I have the best advice for women in business,’ the 41-year-old reality star told the publication.
‘Get your f**king ass up and work. It seems like nobody wants to work these days.’
The comments were met with a huge backlash on social media, with Piers Morgan and Jameela Jamil also adding their voices to the mix.
Responding to her quotes, beauty critic Jessica DeFino – who has previously worked for New York Times and Slate – shared on Twitter: ‘I was an editor on the Kardashian apps in 2015 in LA, worked days nights & weekends, could only afford groceries from the 99 Cents Only Store, called out “sick” more than once bc I couldn’t put gas in my car to get to the office, & was reprimanded for freelancing on the side.
‘The wildest thing about that job: I saw firsthand how the most famous women in the world Frankensteined an impossible standard of beauty, pushed the rest of us to “keep up” with them, weaponized that standard of beauty to sell products, and *still* never felt good enough.
‘Then I pivoted to beauty media because I want to change the industry & quickly realized how f**ked up and exploitative *that* world was.
‘It’s why I do what I do now: Critiquing the beauty industry and reporting on the harms of beauty culture for my newsletter, The Unpublishable.’
Jessica’s tweet has gone viral on the platform, and has more than 1,500 replies, 70,000 retweets and 500,000 likes at the time of writing.
Another employee also spoke of her time working with Kim, after her comments came to light.
Celene Zavala, a programming director at CNN+, is thought to have worked as an unpaid intern assistant for the Skims businesswoman and shared her experience on social media – before making her Twitter account private.
According to the DailyMail, she quote-tweeted a post from Variety on Kim’s comments, with the message: ‘I worked my little college ass off for free for Kimberly.
‘So I better get some addendum in her saying “except Celene, she was amazing”.’
The publication reports Celene wrote on her LinkedIn page that she worked as an ‘intern assistant to Kim Kardashian West’ from August to December of 2015.
Kim has yet to speak publicly about the response to the interview.
Elsewhere in the now-infamous chat, the Keeping Up With The Kardashians star turned KKW Beauty mogul took a moment to hit back at the notion that she’s just famous for being famous.
‘Who gives a f**k,’ she said of the comments. ‘We focus on the positive. We work our asses off. If that’s what you think, then sorry.
‘We just don’t have the energy for that. We don’t have to sing or dance or act; we get to live our lives – and hey, we made it. I don’t know what to tell you.
‘With all respect, and with love, I’m not, like, being a b***h.’
Metro.co.uk has contacted Kim Kardashian for a comment.
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