Keith Girard
Kim Kardashian told Ellen she’s giving up on her materialistic ways following her robbery. But critics say she’s up to the same old tricks. (Photo by Michael Rozman/Warner Bros.)
Kim’s confessional was a stunning turnaround for a reality television celebrity whose career is built on self-absorption and flaunting wealth.
But Kim said her life was changed by the thieves who broke into her exclusive Paris apartment and stole $3 million in jewelry while holding her at knife-point.
“I know this sounds crazy, but I know that was meant to happen to me. I don’t want to start crying, but I know that was so meant to happen to me,” Kardashian told Ellen, sobbing at times.
“But I’m so happy that my kids get this me and that this is who I’m raising my kids [to be]. Because I just don’t care about that stuff anymore, I really don’t,” she proclaimed.
It was Kim’s first interview since the robbery and she milked it for all it was worth.
Ellen gushed and the reality television star drew sympathetic applause from the audience. But not everyone is buying Kim’s makeover.
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Piers Morgan, the former CNN host and now London Daily Mail contributor, for one, wasn’t buying it.
“What tipped me over the edge?” he wrote. “Kim’s pathetic new interview with Ellen DeGeneres, the world’s most simpering chat show host and chief celebrity sycophant.
“Here was a true meeting of galactic level insincerity,” he added.
It’s easy to understand Morgan’s skepticism.
While Kim said she is taking her life in a new direction, she refused to disavow her past behavior.
“I was definitely materialistic before, not that there’s anything bad with having things and working hard to get those things, and I’m really proud of everyone around me that’s successful,” she said.
But the robbery changed her life.
“Knowing the information that I know now, they had been following me for two years. They had been hearing interviews that I did getting excited about this jewelry… and it’s not to say that I’ll never wear jewelry again or anything like that. I truly don’t know if I’d ever feel comfortable, I truly don’t know if I’d ever wear real jewelry again. My whole life has changed in terms of how I travel and what security.”
According to police and media reports, the robbers burst into Kim’s apartment and she was taken to a bedroom, thrown on the bed and held at knifepoint.
She thought, for a moment, she might be raped. But the robbers were all business. They ransacked the apartment and made off with the jewels.
“It would take a heart of stone not to see a mother weep as she talked about such a terrible experience and how it had reshaped her entire life,” wrote Morgan. “So I went to her Twitter account to check how her new life of anti-materialism was going.
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“Her most recent three tweets all direct her 51 million followers to her ‘Kimoji’ merchandise website.”
Then, Morgan put it all together. The Ellen appearance, the raft of butt photos on social media and other actions are all aimed at driving sales of her new “butt” merchandise, like her best-selling “ass tray.”
“In other words, as with all things Kardashian these days, it’s one gigantic con trick,” he writes.
It seems the new Kim is pretty much like the old Kim.
Check out the video below.
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