The Kardashians' reality TV show — which was rebooted in 2022 and is already on its seventh season — has documented a lot of personal moments for the powerful Hollywood family. Several marriages, divorces, and births were recorded for millions to watch at home, along with a harrowing overdose, and even an armed robbery.
In a recent episode, however, the program broke new ground, revealing that Kim Kardashian, the wealthiest of the bunch, has holes in her brain.
Speaking to celebrity psychologist Dr. Daniel Amen, the billionaire learned that initial scans showed "low activity" in parts of her brain, pointing out what he described as holes in her frontal lobe that could be caused by chronic stress. Kardashian, who plays a lawyer in new Hulu show All's Fair, has famously been attempting to pass the California Bar exam, and was recently diagnosed with a small brain aneurysm. She reported feeling excessive sleepiness to Amen.
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Kardashian, later calling her brain beautiful, was incredulous at the news: "I got to get on a plan to really figure this out because I have shit to do this summer." In the lead up to the Nov. 27 episode, Kardashian had encouraged fans to tune in out of concern for her health, telling them via an appearance on Good Morning America that "everything works out."
Kardashian has promoted wellness products and preventative health practices for years, including non-FDA approved drugs, cognitive nootropic supplements, stem cell treatments, and controversial full- body MRI scans.
But this time, fans and onlookers didn't think the brain scan was an introduction to a new consumer product or Kardashian business venture. They theorized something more nefarious — and futuristic — was going on.
"Kim Kardashian is about to attempt to sell us at the most sinister end of the spectrum brain chips/neuralink at the least sinister some sort of ashwaganda gummy. All this 'i’m so stupid my brain don’t work good me can’t pass no bar' is a rollout i can’t be fooled," wrote one X user.
"My money is on her using this to set the stage for getting a NeuroLink [sic], telling everyone how much better she is, and then immediately passing the bar to 'prove' it works," wrote another.
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Neuralink is the brainchild (pun intended) of fellow billionaire and co-founder Elon Musk, which publicly launched in 2017 and published its first research in 2023. The company has committed to ushering in a new era of super intelligence based on implantable brain–computer interfaces (BCIs). In 2024, Musk said that the company had "successfully" implanted a chip into the brain of a human subject — the beginning of long-rumored human trials that began with 29-year-old Noland Arbaugh. In a June update from the company, Neuralink's co-founders said they were trialing a "consensual telepathy tool" that would let people trade information in the blink of an eye and another that could restore partial vision in people who are blind.
There are other brain chip companies trialing the tech, too, like the U.S.-based Synchron and Blackrock Neurotech, and research projects, such as BrainGate housed at Brown University. Regulators like the FDA have been hesitant to approve chip tests, while a growing number of individuals and neuroscience companies have made a pitch that implantable computer chips are the future of medicine.
What better way to speed up adoption, suggests the internet, than getting one of the wealthiest celebrities alive to try it first?
In addition to the suggested profit motives, several users suspected that Kardashian's brain activity could be an un-admitted side effect of long COVID. They suggested that rather than admit to the still-unknown repercussions of the mass disabling event and invest in evidence-backed science, she may be veering in a more experimental direction, like some other celebrities and politicians have done. "We don’t need another billionaire vanity project," wrote one such user. "We need someone with 'F-you money' who’s willing to burn their old script, walk away from the nonsense, and actually help humanity."
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Chase joined Mashable's Social Good team in 2020, covering online stories about digital activism, climate justice, accessibility, and media representation. Her work also captures how these conversations manifest in politics, popular culture, and fandom. Sometimes she's very funny.