Kanye West has a new album, tour, video game and season of his clothing line on the horizon, so journalists are forced to interview the rap star and husband of Kim Kardashian with some frequency.
Thankfully, Kanye West interviews, though difficult to follow and often peppered by the artist with nonsensical, self-aggrandizing non sequitors, do usually yield information pertinent to the political status of America’s most loved and reviled reality television family.
This time, Kanye West announced to Harpers Bazaar that his wife, Kim Kardashian, is basically the modern day equivalent of Marie Antoinette.
My wife is the face of the change of fashion, where designers who literally wouldn’t let her sit in shows are now making entire collections based off of her shape. [Kim] represents our modern-day Marie Antoinette. She gets hair and makeup every day, not just for a photo shoot. Why? Because every day is a photo shoot.
This isn’t the first time Kim and Kanye have tried to draw a metaphor between themselves and the erstwhile King and Queen of France. Before their wedding in Florence, they held a joint bachelor/bachelorette part at the Palace of Versailles, complete with guards, courtesans and horses dressed in 18th century outfits.
A photo posted by Rachel Roy (@rachel_roy) on
No seriously, that’s their pre-wedding party.
But while, as Paper Magazine points out, the proclamation is generally on-brand, Kanye West may want to rethink his historical metaphors. Yes, Marie Antoinette was well known for her daily fashion routine involving powdered wigs, fancy shoes, enormous hooped skirts and a medically unsound approach to bathing. But neither Marie nor her husband, King Louis XVI, had a happy ending.
Although she’s largely a misunderstood figure—Marie was an intellectual who spearheaded financial and political reforms (and whose spousal pressure may have helped the U.S. win its Revolutionary war)—Kim’s…er…Marie‘s very public and very lavish habits ended up stirring the French population, at least in part, to a violent and bloody rebellion that eventually cost Marie most of her stuff and all of her head.
Of course, Kim does invite some other favorable comparisons to the 18th-century French queen. Like Marie, her family is benefiting greatly from her Kanye West alliance, which has produced Kanye’s desired male heir. And while Kim hasn’t quite neutralized Franco-Austrian relations, she’s pretty good at diffusing beefs between her sisters and Blac Chyna. And though it’s not clear whether her diet allows her to eat cake, she has thrown some great parties at Versailles.
Fortunately for Kanye, Marie did remain (mostly) faithful to her husband until he finally agreed to leave the castle. So when that crowd finally turns on him, he’ll at least have something to look forward to.