Hat tip to Judd Apatow.
The 53-year-old comedian and moviemaker knows a thing about being 40. After all, he's been 40 and made a movie all about it. So, when Kim Kardashian lavishly celebrated her own 40th birthday and was not shy about commemorating the occasion on social media, including with some bikini-clad beach shots, they eventually caught Apatow's eye.
"This is 40!" the mom of four captioned an Oct. 26 tweet featuring photos of herself posing in the ocean.
Drum roll for Apatow's brilliant response. "I don't remember this part of the movie," he wrote on Dec. 8, retweeting Kardashian's pictures. Of course, he was cleverly referencing the 2012 film he wrote, direct and co-produced as a Knocked Up spin-off starring Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann as a husband and wife both turning 40. The film centers on the parents navigating this stage of their life and all the challenges that ensue, at times comically, along the way.
Kardashian unapologetically marked her big birthday amid the coronavirus pandemic with a group trip to a private island, where the pictures were taken. "40 and feeling so humbled and blessed," she wrote to fans on Instagram in October. "There is not a single day that I take for granted, especially during these times when we are all reminded of the things that truly matter."
"For my birthday this year," she continued, "I couldn't think of a better way to spend it than with some of the people who have helped shaped me into the woman I am today. Before COVID, I don't think any of us truly appreciated what a simple luxury it was to be able to travel and be together with family and friends in a safe environment."
As for her trip—she said they "could pretend things were normal just for a brief moment in time"—Kim and her loved ones "danced, rode bikes, swam near whales" and kayaked among other activities, as she described in her Instagram post. "I realize that for most people, this is something that is so far out of reach right now, so in moments like these, I am humbly reminded of how privileged my life is," she concluded. "#thisis40."
Kim's younger sister Khloe Kardashian, who went on the trip, later defended the vacation against backlash during an interview with Ellen DeGeneres. "Being there, like with all the precautions and everything that we took and being there and how grateful everybody was for the tourism aspect of it and how so many people said that we were their first party or guest that they've had in months and what it's done for them to be able to pay their bills or to do stuff for their family," she said on DeGeneres' daytime talk show. "Just hearing those messages when we were there—we felt really good and we felt so safe and we did it in the safest way I could imagine someone doing it."