The K factor: the origins of Kim Kardashian

This article was published in 2010, in issue 34 of Vanity Fair and we propose it again today to retrace the changes that Vanity has been the protagonist of in the last 20. Here are all the articles we are republishing.

Kim Kardashian is like Silvio Berlusconi. Nobody admits to voting for it, yet Berlusconi wins the elections, nobody admits to watching it, and yet the Kardashian family’s reality show gets a bang in the ratings. At least in America, where on August 22nd on E! Entertainment has started the fifth season of Keeping Up With the Kardashianswhich in Italy will be broadcast on the same channel (Sky, n. 123) every Monday from 13 September at 8.30 pm with the title Keeping Up with the Kardashiansand which Kim will promote with a mini tour in Milan on the 19th and 20th.
Who the Kardashians are is not easy to explain. Counting them is already complicated. Meanwhile, the man who gave the family its name, Robert, is no longer with us. The lawyer of Armenian origins who defended (and acquitted) OJ Simpson of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown and her alleged lover Ronald Goldman, died in 2003.

In 1991 Kris Houghton, his ex-wife (they had divorced the year before), married Bruce Jenner. Bruce is a former athlete, gold medalist in the decathlon at the 1976 Montreal Olympics: «The only one in the family to have done something in life», the American newspapers maliciously point out, «but whose specific weight within the clan can be seen from the fact that his name does not appear in the show’s title.” At the wedding, Kris and Bruce brought as dowries three daughters and a son, Kourtney, Kim, Khloé and Robert Jr., and three sons and a daughter, Burt, Brody, Brandon and Casey. And, together, they had two more daughters: Kendall and Kylie. Then there are boyfriends, girlfriends, new borns like Mason, 8 months, that Kourtney had from her partner Scott Disick, known for his problems with alcohol.
The group is based between Los Angeles and Miami, with several “trips” to Las Vegas and New York. In such a family orgy it is not easy to emerge as a leading character. Yet Kim did it. Helped by a physique for which it is easy to end up in a spin (one of the 10 most beautiful bodies according to the 2010 ranking of the American magazine Women’s Health Magazine), and his ability to type on the Blackberry: Kim runs a website, a blog (“which I update every night before I go to sleep,” he says) and knows how to get noticed on Twitter. There are videos on YouTube where she discusses tampons, waxing and bottoms with her mother and sisters in the same absent-minded tone that she uses to think about clothes and make-up.
It might seem like we know everything about Kim. Instead, almost nothing is known. And she is careful not to answer questions that have to do with the few topics that would be worth delving into: 1) The Paris Hilton-style porn video, starring her and her ex, the singer Ray J., which ended up in web in 2007 (a topic expressly prohibited by its staff). 2) The accusations of mistreatment, insults and beatings to be more precise, which she addressed to her ex-husband, the music producer Damon Thomas, during the divorce proceedings (and which reached the American press apparently indirectly). After a grueling negotiation of over a month, I get my appointment. She arrives with a mild, completely reasonable delay, her hair is tied up, a low-cut white blouse on a breast that I struggle to avoid with my gaze, a pair of tight and torn jeans, a beige Chanel clutch bag and matching Christian Louboutin sandals, with a heel that is between 10 and 12 centimetres. “I’m too short to afford anything else,” she explains to me (Kim is 1 meter 59 centimeters tall). We order a couple of Diet Cokes and I plug in the tape recorder.

In addition to being the star of a reality show, she and her sisters Kourtney and Khloé run clothing stores and are writing a book about your family. Alone or always with her sisters, she is also a designer of clothes and jewelry, and the spokesperson for beauty products. Of all these activities, which is your favorite?
«The show, because it gives us the opportunity to spend some time as a family, but my real passion is fashion. We opened the first Dash Store in Los Angeles a year before the broadcast began (in the meantime they have opened another one in Miami, and are about to open a Kardashian Store in Las Vegas, ed.). My first job was organizing my friends’ wardrobes. For example, of Paris (Hiltoned.)”.
By the way, what happened between you? After being inseparable for years, not only did you stop being friends, but you also called each other bad words in the press.
«Sometimes as you grow up you change, until the moment you realize you no longer have anything in common. But I don’t think I’ve ever said anything mean towards him. At most I responded to opinions that Paris had expressed about me (Among the most well-known exchanges was the one about the size of the butt: Paris said that Kim’s was too big, she replied by saying: “At least I have one”ed.)”.
Another, more serious, breakup that has been talked about recently is that of her marriage, which lasted from 2001 to 2004, to music producer Damon Thomas. She he would have accused him of mistreatment.
«I can’t talk about it, we both signed an agreement in which we undertake not to disclose news relating to the separation. And then we are talking about something that happened a long time ago: I was 19 when I got married.”
Can you at least explain to me why you did it? Why get married so early?
«Because I was young and stupid? While my friends were in college I found myself working as a housewife. But it was a useful experience: I came out of it stronger, and I understood many things about myself.”
For example, why didn’t she want to be a housewife?
«Which wasn’t enough for me. I was working in my father’s office at the time, but I stopped because being a wife seemed enough. I cooked, I cleaned the house, I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s true. I was much less free than today, in a certain sense I was dependent on that relationship.”
He married in secret.
«In Las Vegas, without ever even being formally engaged. My parents found out after three months. I was the first daughter to get married, and instead of sharing it with them, I had kept it from them. My mother went crazy.”
After the recent breakup with her latest boyfriend, the American football player Reggie Bush, she said she wanted to remain single. How long?
“One year seems enough to me.”
The truth about her alleged affair with Cristiano Ronaldo?
“I don’t talk about these things.”
She doesn’t speak, but the photographs are there
“I don’t feel obliged to respond to all the gossip about me, nor to say whether I’m seeing someone or not.”
Could he get married again one day?
“Certain. I’m a “relationship girl”. And I want to have children, four would be the perfect number. Next time it will be a real wedding”
His father was the lawyer who defended OJ Simpson. What memories do you have of that trial?
«My mother loved Nicole very much, while my father, in addition to being OJ’s lawyer, was also one of his best friends. On the one hand my mother didn’t understand how he could help OJ, on the other hand my father didn’t understand why she didn’t understand. For a year the situation was rather tense. At the time, I was on my father’s side, then I found myself thinking OJ was guilty, and then the opposite again. Today I prefer to say that I don’t have an opinion because the truth is that I don’t feel like thinking about it.”
Is it true that you’re terrified of turning 30 next October?
«There are moments when I think: “Oh my God, I’m old”. But in many respects I feel better now than when I was twenty: I am more sure of myself and I appreciate my curves, I no longer envy my skinny friends.”
However, he admitted that he had already used Botox.
«And a magazine put my photo on the cover with a headline that said: “Kim Has Had Plastic Surgery. She is unrecognizable”. I only did it once because I didn’t like the effect on me. But I think that in a few years I’ll spruce myself up, I have no problem saying that.”
Which part of your body do you like the most?
It touches under the breast.
“My stomach”.
I would have said the butt. It’s one of his favorite topics.
“Precisely. It would have been too obvious an answer.”

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