Back in 2009, Kim Kardashian memorably declared that she’d never get a tattoo during an appearance on The Wendy Williams Show.
After Kim’s sister Khloé shared some of the ink she had across her body, host Wendy asked Kim, who was sitting beside her, if she had any tattoos herself — prompting Kim to give her now-iconic answer, “Honey, would you put a bumper sticker on a Bentley?”
As pop culture enthusiasts will know, Kim’s quote has been referenced time and again across the internet — not just by fans, but by her family, with Khloé admitting she “should've listened to Kim” while revealing she’d gotten one of her tattoos removed in 2015.
But fast forward 14 years, and Kim’s stance on tattoos has evidently changed, with the business mogul unveiling a secret inking on this week’s installment of Hulu’s The Kardashians.
In the episode, which was filmed earlier this year, Kim candidly reveals during a chat with her close friend and hairstylist Chris Appleton that she secretly got a tattoo back in 2021 after she hosted Saturday Night Live.
“Something you don’t know about me,” she begins, before trailing off and showing the tattoo on the inside of her bottom lip.
“It’s an infinity symbol,” she explains, before sharing the details of the night she got inked.
“The night of SNL, when I hosted SNL, me and all my friends got matching tattoos,” Kim says.
“Everyone got them on their hands. I was like, ‘There’s not a shot I will get a tattoo,’” she goes on, before seemingly suggesting that she agreed so long as it was in a place that could be hidden.
The scene then cuts to year-old footage of Kim actually being tattooed. While she appears nervous at first, she later says that the pain is “nothing” — though, as her friends point out, her tightly-clenched fists suggest otherwise.
After her tattoo is complete, Kim films herself in the artist’s studio and says, “This is how you celebrate SNL — with a little tattoo at 4:30 in the morning.”
Cutting back to the day that the episode was filmed, Kim makes a direct reference to her infamous past quote about tattoos.
“I finally put a bumper sticker on a Bentley!” she says with a smile.
Kim then goes on to admit that because the tattoo is hidden, she often forgets that it’s even there.
“No one knows, no one sees it — I forget,” she says. “But every once in a while, I’ll be flossing my teeth and I’ll see black and I’ll go, ‘What’s this black in my mouth?!’ And then I’ll be like, ‘Oh it’s my tattoo!’”
Interestingly, fans theorized that Kim’s infamous dislike of tattoos had begun to shift back when she gushed over Pete Davidson’s ink during their past relationship.
Kim and Pete began dating shortly after she hosted SNL. While they were together, Pete got several tattoos — and a permanent branding — across his body in honor of Kim, including one that read “My girl is a lawyer” and the letters “KNSCP,” representing each of Kim’s four kids with her ex-husband, Kanye West.
Kim and Pete eventually split after nine months of dating, and it was later reported that the comedian had removed or covered up all of the Kim-related tattoos he’d gotten during their relationship.
And Kim isn’t the only KarJenner to have tattooed the inside of her lip — Kendall Jenner actually did it first back in 2016. During an appearance on The Ellen Show, Kendall revealed she’d got the word “meow” tattooed there when she was drunk.
You can watch the latest episode of The Kardashians now on Hulu, or via Disney+ internationally. The next episode will be released on November 16.
Stream old episodes of Keeping Up With The Kardashians on Peacock and new ones on Hulu.