Eating while acting is likely a skill that’s harder than it appears, especially when you think about having a camera in your face while you try to recite lines and chew in not-gross ways. Kim Kardashian is the latest member of the famous family to find themselves the subject of food-based ridicule — see also: Kendall Jenner’s “tragic” cucumber-cutting debacle — after a new ad from Beyond Meat seemed to expose Kardashian’s lack of skills in the area of fake-eating. However, after facing backlash for seemingly not actually eating any of the products that she was advertising, The Kardashians star was apparently exonerated when Beyond Meat whipped out the receipts.
Kim Kardashian partnered with Beyond Meat as the company’s new Chief Taste Consultant, and its latest promotion shows the reality star sampling a number of different plant-based products, including burgers, meatballs, sausage and chicken nuggets — all of which she was seen "chewing," but without taking any bites. Fans commenting on the ad on Beyond Meat’s Instagram quickly responded to the amusingly awkward edit, with comments saying the food must have been “so good you don’t even have to eat it.” Not so fast, though, sayeth the burger brand, who responded to the backlash with stills from the shoot:
@beyondmeat ♬ original sound - Beyond Meat
Now, there’s no video footage of Kim Kardashian actually eating the Beyond Meat products, but a couple of the photos do seem to show her mid-bite, implying some of the food made it into her system. One has to wonder if there are other shots where she's just a mess of crumbs and condiment splooshes, but Beyond Meat is legally required to keep those out of the public's view. Probably not.
The post is likely a direct response to the fan feedback, as the caption states “for everyone asking,” she did, in fact, eat the burger. You can’t blame the fans for their reaction though, because the ad was kind of awkwardly cut to only imply bites were being taken, and the Skims founder was putting in work to look like she was actually chewing this not-bitten burger:
I guess it could be argued that Kim Kardashian can bite a hamburger perfectly in half without teeth marks. But then it happened again with the sausage, which we see her pick up with a fork, and in the next shot, she’s chewing and fist-bumps the chef... with the full piece of sausage still right there on the fork!
Realistically, people shouldn’t expect actors in food advertisements to actually eat all the food in front of them. Since the actors have to do so many takes, often with many different kinds of food, so much would need to be prepared. And it would probably need to be wasted through spitting things out between takes, as to not intake thousands of calories in a given filming sesh.
Some social media users pointed that out, including how wasteful it would have been, and others posited that maybe the commercial was filmed when Kim Kardashian was trying to lose weight to fit into her Marilyn Monroe dress for the Met Gala. But a lot of the comments just pointed out how funny the edit was:
- She's eating a whole mouthfull of their product, Beyond Air. — @xchocobeastx
- Didn't take one bite of anything!!! Not even the burger 😅😅 there was no bite mark!!! 🥴🥴 — vegetarian_be_ladii
You can see the full advertisement from Beyond Meat's Chief Taste Consultant below:
This unfortunately wasn’t the first time Kim Kardashian has received bad feedback over a burger commercial. Back in 2010 she was part of a Carl’s Jr. campaign, which featured her and other actresses in sultry commercials where they reportedly had to take bites out of up to 40 burgers in one shoot. (Yeah, fake eating would definitely be preferable.) After her commercial aired, the company’s CEO said some of the actresses they hired, including Kardashian, just weren't "good at eating the burger.” He later apologized.
Though this Beyond Meat brouhaha could possibly have been avoided with different editing, Kim Kardashian might be better off leaving burger advertising in her past. Something tells me she’d land on her feet.
You can catch Kim Kardashian on her family’s reality show The Kardashians, with new episodes available for streaming each Thursday for Hulu subscribers. Also be sure to check out our 2022 TV Schedule to see what new and returning shows are premiering soon.
