The world has obsessed over Kim Kardashian’s changing body ever since she sashayed onto our TV screens in the late noughties. But no one has ever been as obsessed as the reality star herself, admitting last year she will always “strive for perfection”. And as she hits her diet and the gym harder than ever before in her quest, with fans worrying she’s going too far, friends tell Closer the beauty mogul is in panic mode as she reveals she still isn’t happy with the results…

“Kim puts so much pressure on herself to be perfect – she puts everything into looking like this brunette Barbie doll,” says an insider close to the 42-year-old mum-of-four to North, Saint, Chicago and Psalm. “She’s been on an extreme diet for weeks and has lost yet more weight. Kim has the most incredible willpower, and won’t fall off her strict diet plan, even if her tummy’s rumbling all night. There’s not a morning that goes by where she’s not staggered out of bed at some ungodly hour to sweat her butt off in the gym. She’s doing four-mile treadmill sessions, lifting seriously challenging weights, doing a hundred daily planks and squats, pounding the rope. She’s totally dedicated and her body is changing, as everyone can see. But now she’s in meltdown because she’s worried about possible stretch marks or losing her famous boobs.”

Last week the beauty mogul hit the red carpet at the annual TIME 100 Gala, which celebrates the world’s most influential people in 2023. Kim – who was one of those honoured – wore a clingy white silk dress, with fan comments focusing on why she looked different. One accused, “She is plastic from top to bottom,’ while another wondered if Kim was having “too much surgery.” It followed a visit to watch seven-year-old Saint’s basketball game a few days before, where headlines again focused on her “ultra-thin waist” and “drastic weight loss”. The TV star’s body has become a brand in recent years, with Kim launching a makeup line, shapewear range, skincare line and perfumes. It’s made her a personal fortune of nearly $2billion but it’s also put the star under immense pressure when it comes to her looks, with followers constantly analysing every angle. Last week, Kim – who was previously married to rapper Kanye West for six years – unveiled yet another range of her shapewear, taking to Instagram to share videos of herself modelling two bikinis. Reports focused on her “slender figure” and “stretch marks on her boobs”. 

Kim, who shot to fame in 2007 in Keeping Up With the Kardashians, has been heavily criticised in the past for photoshopping her Instagram snaps, and promoting an unrealistic body image to her young fans. She recently confessed, “I care. I really, genuinely care about looking good”, finally admitting – after years of denials – that she’s had “a little bit of Botox” and enjoys regular laser treatments. She went on to insist that she’d had, “No filler. Never filled either [cheek], ever. I’ve never done anything. I have a drop of mascara on today. I’ve never filled my cheeks. I’ve never filled my lips.” She added that she’s “at peace with not being perfect” but our sources say that attitude has changed in the past few months – since the end of her nine-month fling with comedian Pete Davidson last August. We’re told, “She feels the pressure to land a new man and look good in time for summer.” 

That pressure also comes from her appearance at the Met Gala this week. It’s an event Kim has famously made a splash at on the red carpet, wowing fans last year in Marilyn Monroe’s embellished Jean Louise dress. It was the iconic outfit the actress famously wore to sing Happy Birthday to President JFK to in 1962, now worth $4.8million, and was flown in from Florida accompanied by its own bodyguards. Kim opened up about the extreme lengths she went to in order to fit in the dress, revealing she’d lost 16lbs in just three weeks. She told reporters, “It was such a challenge. It was like a role. I was determined to fit. I would wear a sauna suit twice a day, run on the treadmill, completely cut out all sugar and all carbs, and just eat the cleanest veggies and protein. I didn’t starve myself but I was so strict.” She confessed to crying “tears of joy” when she lost the weight. She later revealed she’d dropped even more, confirming last summer that she’d lost 21lbs overall and explaining, “I just completely changed my lifestyle.” Last week, Kim told her 353 million followers that outfit plans were already in the works for the Met Gala, revealing that she was in Paris and had, “spent some time at Karl Lagerfeld’s office to get a little inspiration for the Met.”

As we’ve previously reported, there has been heated speculation in recent weeks over whether the star had yet again turned to “tweakments”, as her waist got smaller and her bum seemingly got curvier. In recent months, Kim’s been accused of having weight loss injections, liposuction, another bum lift and multiple non-invasive treatments. Last year, Kim revealed how she’d visited Beverly Hills plastic surgeon, Dr Askhan Ghavami for a stomach tightening procedure that uses microneedling and radiofrequency. She called the treatment a “gamechanger” and “painful but worth it.” But even with all that, sources say the reality queen isn’t satisfied with the results she’s getting. “She’s working so hard, which is why it sucks so bad that she’s not feeling her best self yet,” says the source. “Having put so much energy and effort into this, it’s really demoralising for Kim to feel dissatisfied with what she sees in the mirror. Everyone else thinks she looks great, but she’s obsessed with finding any lumps, bumps, or patches of cellulite – even though every woman has it! She’s really worried her boobs might start to sag, which would be devastating as it’s the area of her body she’s most proud of. In the past, her insecurities were always around her butt and face, now it’s her chest that’s causing most concern. It’s really freaking her out and she’s realising that however much dieting and exercise she does, she’s still only human just like anyone else…”