50 newyork| november25–december8, 2019
Could you have imagined ten years ago
that you would have political influence in
this country?
Absolutely not. I’m just as surprised as
everyone else.
Do you think celebrities have more of
an obligation to talk about politics now?
I truly think once I got robbed,^10 it took
something out of me in the best way. All the
things that really mattered to me then
deeply—how many bags I had, what car I
drove ... I still like all that stuff, but it
doesn’t matter. It could go away. For so
long, people have tried to partner me with
causes. But this was the first thingwhere I
thought, You know what? I wantto go to
law school. I want to help people. Let me
work for the next ten years and build up my
brands, and then one day, in ten years, just
give up being Kim K. and become a lawyer.
And now I’ve come to a realization about
what I care about. No publicist would have
ever told me to get into prison reform. It
was always like, Get into Operation This
and Children That.
As you talk about caring less about cars
and bags, it occurs to me that a lot of the
culture of lefty politics right now is about
people being disgusted with billionaires.
Yeah, well, I think lately peopleare just
mad a lot in general. The era of cancel cul-
ture? It’s not really a real thing. They say it,
and it doesn’t happen. I’ve always believed
in second chances and not canceling peo-
ple. It’s really a weird time.
Oprah once said to me, “People often
ask, ‘Who is the next Oprah?’ And the
truth is there won’t be a ‘next Oprah.’ ”
What she was really saying is that the
stars had aligned and that it would never
happen again in quite that way. Could
your success be replicated?
I have always felt that with my show
starting off on regular television and then
transcending into the social-media world,
it was the perfect magic of old-school
media with new-school media all happen-
ing at the same time. I do think that there
will be something else that will bebig and
just as amazing, but it won’t be the same.
When I launch a product, I’ll still go do
television. I used to do Jay Leno and
David Letterman, and I was talking to
Kendall and Kylie about this, and Kylie
said, “Who’s Jay Leno?” I literally died! I
mean, Kendall knows Jay Leno, probably
for his cars and stuff, because she loves
old cars, but she mostly knows Jimmy
Fallon and a different generation of hosts.
Do you remember your first tweet?
I was in Mexico. Ryan Seacrest, the exec-
utive producer of the show, got me out of the
pool for an “important phone call,” and I’m
like, “I usually don’t talk to the boss. What’s
wrong?” And he was like, “You have to get on
Twitter,” and I was like, “Okay, I’ll do what-
ever my boss says.” I got on andtweeted
something like, “Hey guys, it’s Kim Kar-
dashian, there’s probably fake accounts of
me, but this is the real me.” I mean, who
knows what I said? For my first Instagram—
I’ll never forget this. Because I’m always
glammed up, when I’m at homeI’m in a
robe 24/7. And I have the same twoor three
pajamas that I wear all the time. They have
holes in them, and I can’t get rid of them. So
I was wearing a pink-and-white-striped
robe from Victoria’s Secret. My hairwas in a
ponytail. I always know my glam. Iwas sit-
ting in my glam room and we took a picture
on my BlackBerry, and I posted it, like, “Hey
guys. I’m on Instagram.”
I realized pretty quickly that social media
was going to be used as my marketing tool
and my free focus group. It was when I had
to design my perfume bottle, and Iwanted
a pink bottle. Should it be, like, a bright
pink or should it be a lighterpink? I
couldn’t decide. So I took a picture of each
and put them on Twitter and said, “Hey
guys, I need you to decide: Which one do
you like better?” I got responses and replies
for days. It was from people all over the
world, and it was all hours of thenight. I
would write down on a pad of paper a poll
or, like, the tally. Light pink won by so
much. These are the consumers that are
going to be buying it, and they felt like they
were involved.
Being a successful businesswoman—
does that all make sense given who you
were when you were younger?
If you asked me, “Fame or fortune?” I
would not pick fame.
Did I tell you the Chanel story? I can’t
believe I’m telling this story. So I go to myfirst Met Ball. Carine Roitfeld comes up to
me and says, “I have an idea for you: Would
you ever do a photo shoot for CR maga-
zine? I’d love for you to be on the cover. I
want Karl Lagerfeld to shoot it and Ricca-
rdo will art-direct it and I will style it.”^11 So
me, who has never been accepted into fash-
ion at this point, my jaw dropped. “When?
I’ll be there!” I go to Paris. My mom comes
with me. I sit there; I wait. I do the fitting.
Olivier Rousteing of Balmain sent me my
favorite cake from Hotel Costes because he
knew I was pregnant, and I’m sitting there
eating, looking like a pig, and Karl walks in.
And I had told one of my girlfriends that
I’m doing this with Karl, and she’s like, “Oh
my God, he’s going to give you a bag.” He
gives every one of his models, especially on
their first shoot, a bag. So the whole time
I’m in Paris, she’s texting: “What’s the bag?
Keep me posted, text me a picture.”Now it’s
nine at night. Is this a myth?
Halfway through the shoot, my mom
walks in, and she’s wearing Chanel leg-
gings, Chanel thigh-high boots, blazer,
turtleneck, dangling earrings,Chanel
cuffs, gloves, sunglasses, beret—she was
decked in Chanel from the ’80s. Karl stops
the shoot and walks over to her and is like,
“Oh my God, are you her mother? I
remember this jacket! I remember these
gloves! I did those earrings!” The two of
them have this love affair like I’ve never
seen before. And I’m like, Hello? I’m sitting
here posing. I’m so uncomfortable.I’m like,
This is so embarrassing, and so annoying.
I remember texting my sisters and being
like, “Guys, mom is stealing my shiiiine.
This is my first fashion shoot!
So then the shoot’s over, and he comes
out with something behind his back. And
I’m like: “THE BAAAAAG. IT’S
HEEEERRE. OH MY GOD.” I’m thinking:
I will cherish this forever, and I’m pregnant,
so one day I’ll give this bag to my daughter.
Then he comes up and he’s like, “Kim, this
was the best shoot. Thank you so much.
But Kris, here is a bag for you,” andhe gives
the fucking bag to my mom. Andit was a
Lego clutch. They were like ten grand, and
you could never get one. And this was all
Swarovski crystal, just a sample that never
made it to production. So I go into the10 Alone in an apartment in
the Eighth Arrondissement
in Paris in 2016,
Kardashian West was
gagged, held at gunpoint,
and robbed of nearly $9
million in jewels. The thieves
had tied the concierge’s
hands and demanded he
tell them where Kardashian
was staying.8 In a May 2019 Voguecover
story, Kardashianrevealed
that she had decidedto
become a lawyer.Though
she does not havean
undergraduate degree,she
is becoming a “lawreader”
by itha
pr ach
we California
Law Office.9 Reed was granted a stay of
execution on November 15
by an appeals court after a
bipartisan slate of
lawmakers, along with
Rihanna and Kardashian
West, pressured the
go spare his life.
Ka West was with
him e got the news.