The Kardashians | Break The Internet | 4
Even the Rich- 2,081 views
- 2 Mar 2021
Kim’s developed a sixth sense for spinning scandals into publicity – and publicity into new brands. But what worked in 2010 won’t work in 2020. To stay on top, Kim’s going to have to work against all the instincts that have gotten her this far.Listen ad free with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App. https://wondery.app.link/eventherich.Support us by supporting our sponsors!Bright Cellars - Get your matches and receive 50% off your first six bottle orders at brightcellars.com/eventherich.Indeed - Get a FREE $75 dollar credit to promote your job posting at indeed.com/rich.Vizzy - To find out where you can buy Vizzy near you, just go to vizzyhardseltzer.com/rich.
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It's November 12th, 2014, and Kim Kardashian is at her home in Hidden Hills, California.
She's sitting on the couch, opening her mail, her long black hair trails over her shoulders as she sorts through the pile of junk, junk, junk, not junk.
Excitedly, Kim grabs a long white envelope. She's been waiting for this. She sticks her long manicured nail under the sealed flap and not one but two sleek, shiny magazines slip out. Kim can't believe it. Her shoot for paper magazine has finally been released. They love the photo so much that they decided to go with two different covers. Kim puts them side by side. They're similar. Kim stands on a wooden crate with her hair up in a fancy topknot.
She's wearing these vintage long black silk gloves and an endless strand of McMorrow pearls wrap around her neck.
That's where the similarities end. The first cover is risque and sensual, not safe for work. Kim's naked body glistens with oil as she holds her glittery dress just below her butt, which is the focal point of the shot she faces away from the camera, but twists around with a smirk as though stealing a glance at the photographer.
The second cover is more subdued, but a lot more zany. This time, Kim's wearing the glittery black dress. She stands in profile, arching her back and sticking out her derriere.
She laughs while popping open a bottle of champagne.
The golden liquid streams upwards and over her head, pouring into a cocktail glass delicately balanced on her digitally extended behind Kim Love's both covers.
But she likes the second one just a smidge more. It was Jean-Paul Dowd's idea, and Kim has been dying to work with him. His work has a tendency to, as Vogue puts it, blur the boundaries between publicity and high art. He's the reason she signed on to do the cover of paper magazine. She isn't even making a dime off the gig. Wait, she's not getting anything. While the accompanying article discusses her new coffee table book that's about to be released.
So that's some free publicity for her. But Kim isn't even thinking about that right now.
She's transfixed by the photos and ecstatic over how they turned out. She's used to serious fashion editorials, but these photos are campy. They're fun. Kim smirks as she reads the caption splayed across both covers right under her perky derriere are the words break the Internet. And Kim wants to see if she can do just that. So she pulls out her phone and opens Twitter. She starts to scroll.
Both covers have just been released online ahead of the magazine, hitting newsstands and hashtag break. The Internet is already trending. Of course it is.
She beams as she reads tweets from her fans. They love the photos. They're saying that the covers are already iconic and Kim looks beautiful.
But as she keeps scrolling, Kim's face falls the words racist and cultural appropriation flash across the screen. Here we go. Yep. Kim tries to focus, but the room is spinning.
She needs to piece together why people are angry. A minute ago, she was on top of the world. Now she's being accused of racism and people are asking him to explain herself, actually more like demanding it. But that just isn't something Kim is prepared to do. So she puts down her phone and hopes it blows over. So far in her career, Kim has stayed mum on politics and social issues. She and her family have opened up their lives to the world, but kept their views private.
And that's worked for them in the past. But what the cultural climate changing, staying on the fence is getting harder and harder to more and more people.
Kim's public image is starting to feel tone deaf and passé, and Kim's going to have to choose between keeping up with the times or watching her fame pass her by.
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From London. I'm Brooke Saffron. And I'm Erica Skidmore Williams, and this is even the Rich. Last episode we went deep into the life of Kylie. Growing up, the youngest, Kardashian Jenner, watched her sisters turn negative, press into publicity for their new business ventures. And she used that lesson to build her own multimillion dollar empire.
But the Kardashians are about to learn that some backlashes can't be turned into a win. This is Episode four, Break the Internet Show.
Its May 2015 Kim's coffee table book has just been published by Rizzoli, the famous Italian publisher of art books.
So this is an art book. Well, kind of selfish as a collection of her three favorite selfies, which she describes as a candid tribute to my fans. She's happy with how the project turned out, but she can't completely enjoy this new milestone because there's still something nagging at her.
It's been six months since Kim's paper magazine covers broke the Internet. And she didn't respond to any of the accusations of racism, but she did pay attention to the conversation. She read everything she could find about the backlash and try to learn why the images struck such a nerve.
Turns out Jean-Paul Goud was well known for his fascination with blackness.
A lot of his art focuses on it.
In the time before Photoshop, he manipulated images to exaggerate black women's features, things like extending their limbs or highlighting their lips.
I do not like the sound of that. Yeah, a lot of his work is very controversial. And now Kim's in hot water because of a photo Goud took back in 1976 known as the champagne incident. Remember that cover she loved so much where she balanced a champagne glass on her? But it's almost an identical copy of Gout's other photo in the original, a black model is completely naked and they're a composite of several photos. Goud exaggerates her, but her ponytail sticks straight up and she holds the champagne bottle while grinning into the camera.
Her lips are bright red, one cultural critic, Janelle Hobson, said the photo invokes the stereotype of the happy savage.
Pleased to serve. Yeah, not OK, right?
Kim's mortified that she missed it. She thought she was just doing a fun shoot. Instead, she's done something racially insensitive. But the paper magazine cover doesn't happen in a vacuum. It's part of a long history of the Kardashians appropriating black beauty trends of all too familiar with that. I mean, Kim gets applauded for her big butt while black women historically get dragged for them. It's bullshit. Yeah, not to mention the plump lips in the long acrylic nails.
Yeah, a lot of their best-known looks are taken directly from black women. But even after all that, the paper cover is really the first time Kim comes under mainstream criticism for cultural appropriation. But the family doesn't respond to any of the criticism they get. It's radio silence. Kim and her sisters start seeming more and more out of touch because, well, they've been ignoring criticism. The Black Lives Matter movement has been gathering steam. It's July twenty sixteen.
Kim is looking svelte and sexy in a really low cut one piece bathing suit she's trying on. She snaps a full body mirror selfie. This is perfect for her Sociales.
So Kim quickly uploads it and hits post.
But Kim soon realizes that she should have read the room. Her fans are past negative replies. Start to roll in. Kim takes a closer look. One tweet reads, Not right now, Kim. And then another reads, Kim Kardashian has a black son and black husband. And what is she doing? Posting bathing suit pics on Instagram?
Typical, and another one benefitting off black culture, then silent on black issues. Earlier that day, two black men, Alton Sterling and Fernando Castillo, were killed by police. The country is mourning. So Kim's hot pick is, well, pretty poorly timed, like really poorly timed.
I want to be on Kim's side here, but those tweets are not wrong. And not only do people think Kim's pick is completely tone deaf, they want her to speak up on the issue. She has the power to reach hundreds of millions of followers on her social media accounts. And she's not saying a thing. And it seems like she starts to get that because soon after those negative tweets, something changes for Kim.
In the past, she's been afraid to talk about social or political issues. She was afraid to say the wrong thing or alienate fans who don't agree with her. But later that week, Kim picks up her phone and posts a simple graphic of the words Black Lives Matter to her Instagram. OK, but that's not hard to do. True. And she knows it. She also writes a blog post on her website. In it, she says, I want my children to grow up knowing that their lives matter.
I do not ever want to have to teach my. My son to be scared of the police or tell him that he has to watch his back because the people were told to trust the people who protect and serve may not be protecting and serving him because of the color of his skin. Oh, I'm sure Officer Friendly loved that.
Yeah, it's the most explicit Kim has ever been about supporting Black Lives Matter. She's realizing that she doesn't have the luxury of staying inside her privileged bubble. She can't just ignore unpleasant or controversial things. Kim's career depends on her fans and her fans have strong values. Black Lives Matter is gaining steam and the political climate is changing. She has to keep up if she's going to stay relevant. But some of her family members are falling behind. It's April twenty seventeen, Kim's younger sister, Kendall Jenner, is posing for a photo shoot of a big city street.
She's in a silver dress that glimmers like a disco ball. Every time she turns her hips, her naturally brown hair is swept up under a short blonde wig.
As the photographer snaps away, protesters start flooding the streets. Some are playing instruments and dancing. Others are holding signs and chanting. It's a scene that's been playing out across the country in the wake of Trump's election. And increased police violence, like her sister's candles, kept her distance from politics. But that day, the crowd's energy moves her. She rips off her wig, smears off her lipstick, and joins the march, after all, if supermodels know how to do one thing, it's how to walk with purpose.
Even with riot police flanking the edges of the crowd, Kendal's unfazed. She grabs a can of soda, makes her way towards them and boldly steps up to a police officer. And then she hands him the can. He takes it and pops the tab and drinks it. The crowd erupts into cheers. Wait, is this that fucking Pepsi ad? Yep, the one where Kendall Jenner single handedly ends racism? Needless to say, it does not go over well.
People think the ad is completely tone deaf and people are right. Yeah. In response, Pepsi pulled the ad and apologizes to Kendall for involving her in it, which makes people even more mad. They're like, why is Pepsi apologizing to Kendall? They should be apologizing to us. And Kendall should have known better. The backlash gets so big that even SNL gets in on the action. They are short that parodies Kendall for being oblivious.
I'm on the side of my Pepsi commercial. I stopped the police from shooting black people by hitting them a Pepsi. I know. It's cute, right? Now, what does Kendall say, Kendall says nothing, nothing, nothing, at least not yet.
She does eventually apologize, but she does it six months later in a confessional for Keeping Up with the Kardashians.
I would never purposely hurt someone ever. And I would obviously, if I knew that this was going to be the outcome, like I would have never done something like this. But you you don't know when you're in the moment. And, like, I just felt so stupid.
Kendall, honey, no. Yeah. It does not sit well with fans. Some feel like she waited too long to say something and then tried to use her apology for ratings. They felt like she tried to profit off the Black Lives Matter movement and then again off her apology. And Kendall is not the only one accused of profiting from blackness. In June 2017, Kylie gets a lot of heat for selling camouflage bikinis that look really similar to designs by a black woman.
So then what does Kylie say? Nothing.
Kylie doesn't even comment. And around the same time, Khloe gets flack for a similar situation. She comes out with a good American body suit that is nearly identical to one made by a black designer. OK, I'm going to take a stab in the dark here and say Khloe doesn't say anything either. Nope, not a peep. But as all of this is happening, there's one family member taking notes, Kim.
She's spending tons of time on social media and reading tabloids like The Daily Mail. She's aware of what people are saying about her and her family. We don't know for sure what's going through her head, but Kim is probably noticing that their fans don't have a lot of patience when they make mistakes anymore.
When they fuck up, people want them to own up to it and apologize right away. Waiting to speak until the show airs just makes things worse. And it's a pretty well-timed realization because just a few months later, she gets a chance to practice saying sorry.
It's June twenty seventeen, Kim announces a new venture on social media, KW Beauty, it's her brand new makeup company modeled after Kylie Cosmetics. And since it's Kim, she debuted the line with a photo of herself wearing the products in the photo. Her hair is pulled up into a sleek ponytail. She's looking back over her shoulder. Her eyelids are a seductive brons, her lips perfectly glossed, and her skin looks tanned, like really tanned.
On Twitter, people accuse her of blackface almost immediately. Kim is horrified. Blackface was the furthest thing from her intention. But for the first time, Kim immediately fixes it.
She takes the photos down and reshoots the entire campaign, and she gives an interview to The New York Times and says, We saw the problem and we adapted. She even adds that she's learned from it. Finally took her long enough.
Yeah, I mean, it really seems like she's beginning to think more critically about race and she's getting more confident. Speaking up for herself, Kim's quick course correction saves the launch. The product sells out in under three hours and makes Kim more than 14 million dollars.
It's almost like not doing racism is profitable, too. Yeah, Kim's definitely not perfect and she does screw up again, but she really seems to want to do better for her kids. She's learning and growing and she's starting to get that. She has a personal stake in racial justice. If it affects her family, then it affects her to Kim's at a crossroads. Until now, she's been a celebrity, a fashion icon, a businesswoman. But now she has the chance to be something even bigger.
An advocate of getting it right will mean fighting against the same instincts that gave her a platform to begin with. We get support from bright sellers, yup, bright sellers is this incredible wine subscription service, and they are going to help you find wines you love without the normal intimidation and wine pretentiousness you're used to.
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La, la, la, la, la. It's October 25th, 2017, and Cam is scrolling through Twitter, Ellen DeGeneres tweets, Happy birthday to Katy Perry. Variety announces the Honey Boo Boo show has been canceled. Fans re tweet Kim's Connecticut giveaway. Kim's finger hovers over the next post in her feet, a grainy video of a woman talking on the phone posted by Mike Dotcom.
She hesitates, then presses play by the grandmother and great grandmother and 23 year old, by way. Oh, my God. I remember when this went viral.
It's heartbreaking. Yeah, it's awful. And for Kim, who comes from a very big, very close family, it hits a nerve.
She thinks of her grandmother, MJ, who gets to be at all her great grandchildren's birthdays and of her mom, Kris, who can pop over any time and spoil her grandkids with candy and presents, and how she herself can hug her own kids whenever she wants. But Alice won't be seeing her kids or her grandkids any time soon. She's in federal prison for a first time nonviolent drug offense, and she's been given a life sentence without parole. Kim immediately post the video to her own Twitter account with the caption, This is so unfair.
Since Kim hired her first publicist more than a decade ago, she's been told she needs to find her one true cause, maybe Operation Smile or Save the Dolphins, but nothing ever felt right this cause Alice Johnson's cause does.
She wants to do more than just retweeted to her 60 million followers. She's going to free Alice Johnson and she's going to give it her usual 110 percent.
OK, whatever I say about Kim, I will give her. This girl is driven right away. Kim assembles a whip smart legal team, which she pays for herself. But even with the best attorneys money can buy, the only way to get Alice out of federal prison is through the Oval Office. How is that the only way? Well, because she's in federal prison, the president of the United States has to be the one to grant Alice clemency and came in.
The legal team need to make a really good case for why she deserves it. So they get to work.
They reach out to just about everyone Alice has ever met and even some people she hasn't.
They need letters of support, lots of them. And people are more than happy to vouch for Alice. She even gets letters from her warden and her case manager.
But while they're building their case, Kim is also working behind the scenes. She knows her fame comes with power and her Rolodex is filled with high profile contacts, including one woman who calls the president dad.
She picks up the phone and dials Ivanka Trump. Kim knows exactly what to say to get her to pay attention.
I called Ivanka and we had a really great conversation about women and wanting to help each other. And she immediately was so receptive.
Woman to woman, mother to mother. The move is on brand for Ivanka, and she likes the optics. Kim lands a meeting with President Trump. All the stars are aligned.
Kim is hopeful that Alice will be free at last.
But just before Kim is about to fly to Washington, DC, she gets a call. It's the White House. The meeting is canceled. What snow? Kim is devastated. They tell him that they need more letters of support for Alice. She's like, what? How many more could you possibly need? They tell her they want a thousand. After the shock sets in, Kim just picks herself up and gets to work finding more support. But the truth is, Kim would have gotten a hundred thousand or a million letters more if that's what she needed to do.
Nothing can stop Kim when she's passionate about something, Pritch, and it takes some work.
But Kim gets the letters Alice needs and mails them right off to the White House. A meeting is back on on May 31st.
Twenty eighteen, about seven months after seeing the video of Alice on Twitter, Kim travels across the country to meet with President Trump in the Oval Office. Kim didn't vote for President Trump and she knows just how polarizing he is, but she's willing to do whatever it takes to free Alice. Here she is talking about it on The View.
And so for me to think that I couldn't go and speak to the man that has the power to change people's lives because of some opinions I may have of certain policies and issues, to me, I felt very self-centered that I was more worried about my reputation than saving someone's life.
For Kim, this is huge. Her reputation is everything. It's what she built her career on. If her fans turn on her, her multimillion dollar empire could crumble. Well, at least she'd go out doing some good in the world. Very true. Before she meets Trump, Kim adds a finishing touch to the outfit she'll be wearing to the White House. It's a watch she bought at auction once owned by former first lady Jackie O. Kim is hopeful that it will bring her luck.
And then she marches into the Oval Office and pleads Alice's case to the president. But once the meeting is over, all Kim can do is wait and pray that it was enough. One week later, Kim's at a photo shoot.
She's in full glam. Her hair and makeup are flawless. It took hours to perfect the look. Her high, tight ponytail doesn't have a hair out of place. She's wearing long diamond earrings and a white fluffy robe. OK, I'm keeping count. And this is the third time our girl has shown up in our story with a white fluffy robe. I mean, I can't blame her. If I could, I'd live in a bathrobe and and covid times I kind of do.
Well, Kim's rocking the robe because once again, she's about to pose naked. And then just as she's about to disrobe, Kim's phone rings. It's the call she's been waiting for. President Trump, she quickly answers, listens, hangs up and immediately dials the Latin.
Kim nervously paces as they answer and try to connect with Alice in prison.
Miss Alice. No, angel, my angel. I can not believe it. We didn't we. We did it. We did it. You don't know. Oh, my gosh. Alice, you're out. You're. Alice weeps, she cries, tears of joy, tears of freedom, and Kim wants to cry like really wants to, but Kim's the consummate professional, so she keeps it together.
After all, she's about to step onto a photo shoot. And all of this is being filmed for season 15 of keeping up. Don't tell me this was all just for the show. It wasn't.
But people are still a little wary of Kim's motives. They start to speculate whether Kim's foray into justice was just a stunt for ratings.
I mean, it is really cynical, but I can't totally blame them. True. But there's another way to look at it. A really positive way.
By putting Alice's story on keeping up, Kim shows millions of viewers what's wrong with the prison system. And maybe some of those viewers are people who weren't paying attention, just like Kim wasn't before she encountered Alice Johnson. But Kim is paying attention now. And now that she knows what she's capable of, she's in for the whole system.
It's April twenty nineteen, and Kim's wearing a sheer rust colored Chanel tank top paired with a thick silver chain link necklace. Her makeup is muted, almost nude. She stares straight down the barrel of the camera lens as she poses for her first solo cover for Vogue. Oh, moving on up. Yeah, it's a huge win for Kim. She's idolized the fashion Bible for years. In the cover photo, Kim is sopping wet. She looks determined like she's ready for a fight under her.
The headline reads Taking a Stand The Awakening of Kim Kardashian West started from the bottom. Natia here in the article, Kim discusses her work with Alice Johnson and how she's not even close to done. Freeing Alice was just the beginning. Kim's been hard at work with CNN commentator Van Jones and attorney Jessica Jackson. They're the co-founders of Hashtag Cut 50, an organization aimed at cutting the prison population by 50 percent in the next ten years. So Kim's been pretty busy visiting prisons, petitioning governors on behalf of inmates and even attending more meetings at the White House.
Seriously, where does she find the time? I have no idea, because she's also posing for Vogue, running her KW beauty line, endorsing products, shooting another season of keeping up, raising three kids and reining in her husband, Kanye, when he stirs up controversy online. But Kim isn't scared of work.
So even with all that on her plate, she takes on yet another project. She tells the reporter that she's studying to become a lawyer. She's doing a four year apprenticeship with plans to take the bar in twenty twenty four. It sounds so legally blonde or should I say legally brunette? Yeah. You're not the first person to make the Elwood's comparison.
Twitter basically explodes and some people are just straight up cruel. One tweet reads, Good for her.
Getting a job at last came just ignores them and continues her social justice crusade. She works to free seventeen nonviolent offenders from prison, including paying their legal fees. But just as Kim is finding her stride in this new arena, she makes a blunder so big it could undo everything.
It's June 2019. Kim opens her phone to Instagram. She's about to launch a whole new brand through social media. OK, two questions.
One, has she learned from her mistakes? And to how many damn companies can one family have? A lot.
But yes, Kim is being a lot more careful this time around. She handpicked and double triple checked the photo she'll be posting to introduce the world to her brand. Kim uploads the photo and writes, Finally, I can share with you guys this project that I've been developing for the last year. I've been passionate about this for fifteen years. The photo features Kim and a skin tone spandex body suit. She's starting a shapewear brand, and Kim's pretty sure it's going to give Spanx a run for its money.
She hits post and sits back waiting to see if her fans will be as excited as she is.
But when comments start rolling in, they're not what she expected.
People are fine with the photo, but they're not so good with the brand's name. What was the name again? Kimono. Oh, no, no.
Yes, the tweets start coming in hard and heavy.
They accuse Kim of using a name that appropriates a central part of Japanese culture and using it for her underwear line. So this launch isn't going to go any better than her last one? Nope.
And actually this time it's worse with KW. Kim could just toss the photos and reshoot the campaign.
To fix this problem. They have to toss the actual product, hundreds of thousands of garments because Kim chose to print the name Kimono directly onto the material they renamed the brand. It's going to cost them about ten million dollars.
OK, that's some serious change. Yeah, Kim's trying to figure out what to do and she's listening to her fans and taking their comments to heart. But when the mayor of Kyoto sends a letter asking her to reconsider, Kim realizes that the way forward is clear just six days after the launch. Kim announces she's changing the name she takes to Twitter and says, I'm always listening, learning and growing, I so appreciate the passion and varied perspectives that people bring to me.
Kim does a second rollout to Instagram, a picture of herself surrounded by women of varied sizes, shapes and skin colors, and a new, all inclusive brand name skims. Wait, what about the 10 million? Well, Kim was willing to let it burn, but luckily the company does find a way to salvage the merchandise. They call the old branding out of the garments and put the new label in it.
Costs are, but not nearly as much when the line officially goes on sale. It sells out immediately. Making over two million dollars in a matter of minutes with Skimps is another successful brand in her empire. Kim's net worth is nearing a billion dollars. Her hard work is paying off beyond her wildest dreams. But as much as Kim is trying to relate to her fans, she's also entering a realm of wealth that makes her completely unrelatable. And it won't be long before Kim shows the world just how out of touch she's becoming.
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She's helped free Alice Johnson. She's working hard toward her law degree. And when people raise concerns over the name of her new shapewear company, she immediately changes it. She's come a long way from being the woman who cried over a diamond earring and needed her sister to remind her that. Alicia, do you want to do the honors?
Kim, there's people that are dying. Still love that line.
But now Kim isn't ignoring the world around her. She's choosing to get more engaged and people are starting to begrudgingly respect her.
But then just three days after she changes her company's name from kimono to skims, she makes a move that has people doubting her motives all over again.
My name is Alice Marie Johnson. I'm from Memphis, Tennessee. I'm wearing the sculpting body suit. Hang on, what am I listening to?
It's Alice Johnson in an ad for Skims. What? Yeah.
In the ad, Alice tells the story of how Kim fought for her release. But that's not all she's grateful to Kim for. She also loves her brand new skimps shapewear.
The shapewear makes me feel that I could walk into the store. I can pick up something that I normally wouldn't even think about wearing and I could put it on and it's going to look great on me. This shapewear makes me feel free. That is absurd. Yeah.
And the Internet agrees with you. The website Jezebel accuses him of using her criminal justice reform work to turn a profit. It sums up the ad campaign in two words, inexplicably bleak. The Daily Beast writes that this is a new low even for this family. Yeah, I'm finding it hard to disagree.
There's a similar backlash when Kim narrates a documentary about mass incarceration. The dock is called Kim Kardashian West The Justice Project. And as a review in Variety puts it, the documentary's title says it all. Justice is a part of the whole endeavor. But Kim Kardashian West comes first.
Yikes.
Yeah, people are having trouble toggling between Kim 1.0 and Kim 2.0. One day, Kim's tweeting about a woman who was forced to give birth wearing shackles. The next day, she's tweeting, just restocked our best selling skins, cozy collection styles and bone and desk. It's a little disorienting for people who like to compartmentalize their social causes and their shapewear needs. Personally, I don't compartmentalize my body and my causes both appreciate support. But whatever your feelings about Kim, one thing is undeniable.
She's entering a new phase of her career and in twenty twenty she makes an announcement that signals even bigger changes on the horizon. After 14 years and 20 seasons, Keeping Up with the Kardashians is ending truly the end of an era. I don't know what I'm going to watch when I play Candy Crush.
Now, I know entertainment you can tune out is hard to find, but it's not clear if the end of the show is like a period on Kim's career as a reality TV star or an ellipses.
Keeping UPS ratings were taking a beating, so Kim might just be winding down the show before she launches a new reality TV endeavor, something that can grab better numbers. Or she might be winding down the show so she can focus on her businesses and her activism.
Nobody really knows yet. In April, twenty twenty a month into the pandemic, she seems to be moving toward door number two. She's taking on the role of responsible celebrity role model and urging her fellow Californians to wear a mask and stay at home. Hi, everyone.
In California, it's Kim Kardashian West. And I just wanted to talk to you North West, have a serious conversation with you guys about social distancing. Honestly, staying at home is saving lives. And that's what we're all trying to do here. All right. That's it first.
But then in October, Kim does the exact opposite of staying home. She whisks herself and her inner circle to a private island for her fortieth birthday. Kim, the whole party cost over a million dollars. And she explains it all in an Instagram caption. After two weeks of multiple health screens and asking everyone to quarantine, I surprised my closest inner circle with a trip to a private island where we could pretend things were normal just for a brief moment in time.
I know our listeners can't see me, but just to be clear, I am shaking my head. I mean, people are really actually dying. Kim. Yeah, people are pissed. They reply to Kim's tweets saying things like, you know, what would have felt normal for me, Kim not having to say goodbye to my mother over FaceTime as she was dying of covid Kim's own post continues.
I realized that for most people, this is something that is so far out of reach right now. So in moments like these, I'm humbly reminded of how privileged my life is to me, that celebrity for I know this is going to piss people off, but.
I can't help myself, right? She still can. She refuses to have a fabulous party and not document it when a famous tree falls in the forest. Somebody needs to hit like. And then at the end of 2020, a Cardassian signed a multiyear deal with Disney. Their shows going off E but the Kardashians aren't going anywhere. OK, so this was all a fake out. Yes.
But also know the Kardashians are coming back in some form and maybe we'll be seeing more of Kim 2.0 because I do think she's changed at least a little bit. She's serious about the law. She's serious about criminal justice reform. She's donating millions to coronavirus relief efforts, but she's also still posting bikini selfies and selling way strainers. And that's the thing about Kim. She refuses to pick a lane. It's what makes her so fascinating and for some people, so infuriating.
She's asking us to talk about shapewear and mass incarceration in the same sentence. She's blurring the line between building a business and promoting a cause.
She's living a life that leans into all the things our culture writes off as superficial cosmetic surgery, reality TV, Instagram.
But she's combining it with all the things that our culture takes most seriously. OK, but I take my reality TV very seriously. I mean, so do I. But by doing it all, Kim's gone from a cultural sensation to a cultural force.
When she first started dating Kanye, she was his plus one. Now, as their marriage is ending, she's emerging as the partner with more forward momentum. She's already turned her 15 seconds of fame into 15 years. The question now isn't whether she'll get another 15. It's what is she going to do with them?
This is the final episode of our four part series, The Kardashians. On our next episode, we'll be talking to journalist Dan Romanoff about the biggest celebrity divorce in years and some of the juicy details we couldn't cover on our series. Yeah, there are too many Kardashians for a four part series we didn't even talk about Khloe interest in or Scott or Rob or forgotten Rob.
Well, we'll see how much ground we can cover in our interview. Yeah, we definitely will. If you like our show, please give us a five star rating and a review and be sure to tell your friends subscribe on Apple podcast, Amazon Music, the thundery app or wherever you're listening right now. Join Wonder E-Plus in the Wonder app to listen ad free. You'll also find some links and offers from our sponsors in the episode notes. Please support them by supporting them.
You help us offer you this show for free. Another way you can support the show is by filling out a small survey at one True.com survey. We use many sources when researching our series, including Vogue, The New York Times and Twitter circa 2017. We especially recommend Ian Helprin's Kardashian dynasty. But our favorite source was, of course, Keeping Up with the Kardashians. I'm Brooke Szifron. And I'm Erica Skidmore Williams. Natalie Robinett wrote this episode, editing by Allison Rimer.
Our producer is Natalie Sheesha, our associate producer is KIYOUNG. Our audio engineer is Sergio Henriquez.
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