Kim Kardashian was surprised by the backlash to her comments about women in business

On the fourth episode of the second season of Hulu’s The Kardashians, viewers watch Kim Kardashian and her family pose for the cover of Variety to promote, actually, the first season of Hulu’s The Kardashians. And much like the viewer of a horror movie watching an innocent woman walk into the basement where the murderer is hiding, we can see the disaster approaching.

The reporter asks the family what advice they’d give women in business, and Khloé stresses the importance of passion and that sometimes things look easier than they are. But then Kim utters the immortal words: “I have the best advice for women in business: Get your f*cking ass up and work. Success is never easy. If you put in the work, you will see results.”

Cue the screams.

As you by now know, this clip generated a huge backlash online, with many people calling the Skims founder out for not acknowledging that hard work alone won’t result in success unless you also have opportunities and resources, which the Kardashians have in spades.

For the rest of the episode, Kim and Khloé alternate between commiserating and apologising. “I’m, like, mortified. Obviously, it’s all my fault,” Kim complains to her mother, who assures her that she was just “misunderstood.”

In a mini mea culpa, Kim tells the camera, “When I made that statement, it wasn’t a blanket statement towards all women. As if I didn’t think women work hard. Or respect the work that they do, because I see it every day…. I hated that that got misunderstood. And for that, I’m so sorry.”

Khloé tries to bolster her sister, telling her, “It never ends until…we end. But guess what? We’re built for this,” and, “It’s all noise—none of it’s real.”

Later Kim acknowledges part of what the backlash was about, saying, “Enough people were triggered, so I want to be responsible, and I do understand that a lot of people weren’t given the same opportunities as us,” but Khloé continues to deny that her statements were in any way out of line, saying, “No matter what her answer would have been, people would crucify her…. They always want to make whatever you say a personal attack.” She later jokes that she should send the media lighters for Christmas because of all the gaslighting.

But here’s the thing: What isn’t shown during the Variety shoot is the line that generated the bulk of the vitriol, which was, “It seems like nobody wants to work these days. You have to surround yourself with people that want to work. Have a good work environment where everyone loves what they do because you have one life. No toxic work environments…show up and do the work.” 

That entire part of the quote is edited out on the show, even though that’s the part that made it seem like Kim Kardashian thinks unsuccessful people just haven’t worked hard enough. It’s also interesting that they cut around the “toxic work environments” quote; when the controversy originally happened, the family caught flak for claims that they were overworking and underpaying their own employees. With that in mind, it seems like the Kardashians are presenting a version of events in which good advice (working hard) is taken the wrong way, rather than what really happened: a muddled statement that drew legitimate criticism.

True to their word, though, the women work hard. Instead of posing for a magazine cover, Kendall Jenner is hard at work launching a side hustle flipping houses with a friend. Good for you, Kendall! Got your fucking ass up!

This story originally appeared on GLAMOUR US.