When Regina Hall, one third of Sunday night’s Oscar hosting committee, turned to Dame Judi Dench, who had lost the best-supporting-actress award to Ariana DeBose earlier in the night, and said that she had an inspirational quote for her, Dench looked confused. “This is a quote from Kim Kardashian: ‘Work harder.’ That’s what we need you to do,” Hall said.  

Most of the viewers probably knew Hall was referring to a quote from Kardashian’s Variety profile earlier this month: “I have the best advice for women in business,” she said. “Get your fucking ass up and work. It seems like nobody wants to work these days.”

This comment of course was not taken well. It was overwhelmingly lambasted on Twitter, on podcasts, in opinion pieces, and the like for a several reasons. One being that the Kardashian family is one of immense privilege. Another being that it’s been a rough time for the American workforce in general, and its women in particular. And still another is that brand of destroy-yourself-to-get-to-the-top girlbossery is on the way out, replaced by a contingent of advocates for a more sustainable relationship to work.

Kardashian sat down with Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts in a taped interview that aired Monday morning and addressed the comment. The reality star says the energy she was bringing to her answer in that moment was leftover from a remark that she was “famous for being famous” right before it. 

“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,” she told Roberts. “It was taken out of context, but I’m really sorry if it was received that way.”

Kardashian said it became a “sound bite, really with no context” and it stemmed from “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.”

“Having a social media presence and being on a reality show does not mean overnight success, and you have to really work hard to get there, even if it might seem like it’s easy and that 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.”

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