Magazine Winter 2008 Trying to Keep Up With Kim Kardashian
Trying to Keep Up With Kim Kardashian
Kim Kardashian came upon the gossip circuit as a member of a famous and well-connected family. She soon distanced herself from that image and began to reinvent herself. The 27 year old Armenian-American first came onto the Hollywood radar as a close friend of the socialite Paris Hilton, but very quickly learned to play her own fame game.
Kim Kardashian burst onto the Hollywood social scene like a storm. Unlike many who only manage to scrape away with their 15 minutes of fame, she has been able to brand her image in such a business savvy manner that the limelight is far from fading. She is the daughter of the famed OJ Simpson attorney, Robert Kardashian, who passed away in 2003. Kim appeared on the first episode of Paris Hilton's reality show “The Simple Life” in 2003. However, she was still not well known outside of the Hollywood social circuit until a sex tape emerged on the Internet of her and her former boyfriend, R&B singer, Ray J. Kim's voluptuous good looks, in addition to the controversy surrounding her denial of the existence of the infamous tape, and then subsequent release featuring her coupling with Ray J, catapulted her to instant celebrity status. Public interest in Kim lead to her own reality show “Keeping Up With the Kardashians”, which debuted on the E! Network in 2007. According to Nielsons Media Rating, the show was the highest rated series on Sunday nights among women 18- 34 years old. The show follows the lives of the Kardashian family with Kim as the main focus of the series. The premiere of the second season attracted 1.4 million viewers and Kim has signed on for a third season of her reality show. The desire to extend her celebrity status does not stop there. Kim was featured on the cover of the December 2007 issue of Playboy w ith a twelve-page spread, one of the largest the magazine has had. The Armenian- American beauty is also testing the waters with a career in acting with a new comedy film, Disaster Movie, which hit theaters August 29. Her good looks, connections and smart industry decisions have kept her in the limelight. Needless to say, Kim's businesses, the two boutiques she co-owns outside of L.A., DASH and Smooch, are attracting large numbers of customers. Kim is famous today not only for being a well-connected socialite or a sex symbol but because she is a savvy business women who understand the delicate game of keeping the public interested.
You have created a successful public persona, but who is the real Kim Kardashian?
I am such a family girl. I think, that became evident when I did the show “Keeping Up With the Kardashians”, and I think that’s kind of a big reason why I wanted to do the show because I think people thought of me as this wild party girl and, you know, there is the stereotype of Hollywood girls, that we just party all night and shop all day and we don’t really do anything. And I wanted to do the show because I wanted to show who I really am instead of what people make up about me. I think the show does a good job of showing me and my sisters, we get up everyday, we go to our store, we have a whole bunch of stuff going on but at the end of the day we are as close as ever with our family and you know family is at the basis of everything. That’s a huge part of my life. Whether it’s making new friends or dating someone, my sisters get to give their approval. So I definitely implement family in pretty much everything that I do.
What are you most passionate about, what inspires you?
Fashion! I love fashion, that’s pretty much my life. My sisters and I are so lucky that we have a clothing store and our job basically has been running the store and now we have the online store and this year we’re hoping to start designing. I worked in my dad’s office for seven years, in his music company called Movie Tunes, it was great and it was fun and amazing but we would always go back to the fashion stuff.
Who is your greatest inspiration in life?
I definitely say my dad. He raised us very strict, very Christian. I can’t even really explain how amazing he was at raising us. He was strict but he was so much fun. Obviously, my mom was the more lenient parent. But I only wish that I can raise my kids like my dad raised me because it was just the best childhood. I had the best upbringing.
What were your childhood dreams? Did you ever imagine you would be so famous?
Not at all. To be honest with you my dreams were to just get married and have a family. That really had nothing to do with this life but it just happened and I love it and I’m having so much fun. But I never imagined it at all.
It takes a lot of work to keep the public interested and you have managed to do this very successfully. You have a successful show on E! Network. How do you deal with life in the limelight?
Because I have my family and we’re so honest with each other, I think if any of us started to get a big head or anything like that, I mean clearly we all have our little diva moments, but it is shut down so fast in my family. Because there is just so many of us we don’t have time for all the egos and all that. I am so grounded because of my family. It is because of them that I personally have not gotten into drinking and not gotten too crazy over the deep end. It is totally due to my family.
How do you deal with gossip and tabloids since there is so much out there about you?
Gosh, at first it was really hard for me. I’m not going to lie to you; it was really tough because I would think that people just believed everything that’s being said. I was like, no this isn’t true and I never dated this person and how could they say that and they are making me have a bad reputation. But you know, I kind of just have to say, you know what, it’s never going to stop, this is now my life and I have to suck it up and deal with it. And that’s basically it. Obviously there are certain things that you can do; you can’t give them too much to talk about. If I’m out partying every night of course they are going to say something, you know. So you have to grow a thick skin and I have definitely learned that.
