Kimberly Noel Kardashian is an American socialite, media personality, and businesswoman. She first gained media attention as a friend and stylist of Paris Hilton, but received wider notice after the sex tape Kim Kardashian, Superstar, shot in 2003 with her then-boyfriend Ray J, was released in 2007. Later that year, she and her family began to appear in the E! reality television series Keeping Up with the Kardashians (2007–2021). Its success led to the formation of the spin-off series Kourtney and Kim Take New York (2011–2012), Kourtney and Kim Take Miami (2009–2013), and Hulu's The Kardashians (2022–present).

Kardashian has developed a significant presence online and across numerous social media platforms, including hundreds of millions of followers on Twitter and Instagram. With sisters Kourtney and Khloé, she launched the fashion boutique chain Dash, which operated from 2006 to 2018. Kardashian founded KKW Beauty and KKW Fragrance in 2017, and the shaping underwear or foundation garment company Skims in 2019. She has released a variety of products tied to her name, including the 2014 mobile game Kim Kardashian: Hollywood and the 2015 photo book Selfish. As an actress, she has appeared in the films Disaster Movie (2008), Deep in the Valley (2009), and Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor (2013), and provided her voice for PAW Patrol: The Movie (2021). She is set to star in the twelfth season of the American anthology television series, American Horror Story (2023).

Time magazine included Kardashian on their list of 2015's 100 most influential people. Both critics and admirers have described her as exemplifying the notion of being famous for being famous. She is estimated to be worth US$1.8 billion, as of 2022. Kardashian has become more politically active by lobbying for prison reform and clemency, and is currently under a four-year law apprenticeship supervised by the legal nonprofit #cut50. Her relationship with rapper Kanye West has also received significant media coverage; they were married from 2014 to 2022 and have four children together.

Early life and education

Kimberly Noel Kardashian was born on October 21, 1980, in Los Angeles, California, to Robert and Kris Kardashian. She has an older sister, Kourtney, a younger sister, Khloé, and a younger brother, Rob. Their mother is of Dutch, English, Irish, and Scottish ancestry, while their father was a third-generation Armenian-American. In 1991, their parents divorced and their mother married Bruce Jenner, the 1976 Summer Olympics decathlon winner. As a result of her mother's remarriage, Kim Kardashian acquired step-brothers Burton "Burt", Brandon, and Brody; a step-sister, Casey; and later two half-sisters, Kendall and Kylie Jenner.

Kardashian attended Marymount High School, a Roman Catholic all-girls school in Los Angeles. In 1994, her father represented football player O. J. Simpson during his murder trial. Simpson is Kardashian's godfather. Kardashian's father died in 2003 of cancer. In her teenage years, Kardashian was a close friend of Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton, through whom she first garnered media attention. After totaling her car at age 16, her father agreed to buy her a new one on condition that she agree to be responsible for paying all expenses related to any future damages. She subsequently began working at Body, a local clothing store in Encino, California, where she worked for four years, assisting in the opening of the Calabasas location. In 2000, after entering into her first marriage, she resigned.

Career

Beginnings (2003-2006)

By 2003, Kardashian was working as a personal stylist to the R&B singer and actress, Brandy, the sister of Ray J. Later, the siblings' mother (and manager) Sonja Norwood, alleged that in 2004 she had authorized Kardashian to make "one and only one" purchase on her American Express credit card and that nevertheless Kardashian and her sisters Khloé and Kourtney had incurred over $120,000 in unauthorized charges to that card. Norwood also alleged that the bulk of the charges were attributable to purchases made at Kardashian's family-owned boutique in 2006 and 2007, after Kardashian was no longer employed by Norwood's daughter. Norwood further alleged that, at the request of her children, she did not file criminal charges, instead presenting her allegations personally to Kardashian, and that Kardashian apologized and promised to repay the debt. In 2008, no payments having been forthcoming, Norwood filed a lawsuit. Kardashian has denied all these allegations. In 2009, the parties reportedly reached a confidential settlement, and the lawsuit was dismissed.

Breakthrough (2007-2010)

In February 2007, a sex tape made by Kardashian and Ray J in 2003 was leaked. Kardashian filed a lawsuit against Vivid Entertainment, who distributed the film as Kim Kardashian, Superstar. She later dropped the suit and settled for a reported US$5 million, allowing Vivid to release the tape. Several media outlets later criticized her and the family for using the sex tape's release as a publicity stunt to promote their forthcoming reality show. In October 2007, Kardashian and her mother, Kris Jenner, her step-parent Caitlyn Jenner, her siblings Kourtney, Khloé, and Rob Kardashian, and half-sisters Kendall and Kylie Jenner, began to appear in the reality television series Keeping Up with the Kardashians. The series proved successful for E!, and led to the creation of a number of spin-offs, including Kourtney and Kim Take New York and Kourtney and Kim Take Miami. The flagship series concluded in 2021 after 294 episodes.

Kardashian posed in a nude pictorial for the December 2007 issue of Playboy, and appeared on the cover of the November 2010 issue of Romanian Playboy, promoting a pictorial titled "Poezia Unui Fund Bombat" (The Poetry of a Bulging Ass). She made her feature film debut, opposite Carmen Electra, in the disaster film spoof Disaster Movie (2008), in which she appeared as a character named Lisa.

Continued Exposure (2011-2016)

In 2011, Kardashian released her third fragrance, "Gold", as well as a novel, Dollhouse, along with sisters Kourtney and Khloe. In 2012, E! renewed Keeping Up with the Kardashians for two additional seasons, in a deal reported to be worth $50 million. That year, Kardashian released her fourth fragrance, "True Reflection", which she worked with the company Dress for Success to promote, and her fifth fragrance, "Glam", which was made available through Debenhams. In Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor (2013), a romantic drama produced, written, and directed by Tyler Perry, Kardashian obtained the role of the co-worker of an ambitious therapist. While the film was a moderate box office success, with a worldwide gross of US$53.1 million, critical response was negative and Kardashian won the Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress.

Kardashian released Kim Kardashian: Hollywood, a mobile game for iPhone and Android, in June 2014. The objective of the game is to become a Hollywood star or starlet. The game supports a free to play model, meaning the game is free to download, but charges for in-game items. It was a hit, earning US$1.6 million in its first five days of release. In July, developer Glu Mobile announced that the game was the fifth highest earning game in Apple's App Store. She voiced an alien in the September 21, 2014 episode of the adult animated series American Dad!.

Business ventures (2017-present)

With sisters Kourtney and Khloé, she launched the fashion boutique chain Dash with an initial store in Calabasas, California. The chain operated between 2006 and 2018.

In 2017, Kardashian launched both her beauty and fragrance lines, KKW Beauty and KKW Fragrance. She made a cameo appearance in the heist film Ocean's 8, which was released on June 8, 2018.

After announcing a new range of shapewear called Kimono in June 2019, Kardashian was heavily criticized over the name of the brand, which critics argued disrespected Japanese culture and ignored the significance behind the traditional outfit. Following the launch of the range, the hashtag #KimOhNo began trending on Twitter and the mayor of Kyoto wrote to Kardashian to ask her to reconsider the trademark on Kimono. In response to public pressure, she announced that she would change the name. However, Japanese trade minister Hiroshige Seko stated that he would still be dispatching patent officials for a meeting at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and that Japan would keep an eye on the situation. In August 2019, she changed and rebranded the shapewear company to the name Skims, officially launching the following month on its own digital store and later made available on various other websites (such as online stores of SSENSE, David Jones, Net-a-Porter, Ounass).

In February 2020, under a retail partnership with Nordstrom, Skims' products were made available to shop exclusively at the chain's stores across the United States. The company has also expanded into lingerie, bodysuits, loungewear, dresses, and winterwear. Since 2021, Skims has opened various pop-up stores in the United States, Europe and Asia. In June 2021, Kardashian revealed the brand entered into a partnership with the US Olympics team under which the company would provide undergarments, loungewear and pajamas and other clothing items with American flags and the Olympics rings with a Team USA branding printed on them to the team's female athletes at the 2020 Summer Olympics and Paralympics. The athletes also wore Skims' clothing at the 2022 Winter Olympics, and were featured in the brand's campaign for a capsule collection launched ahead of the event, in collaboration with the United States' Winter Olympics delegation.

Activism

During an interview with Caity Weaver of GQ for the July 2016 issue, Kardashian described herself as a Democrat, and declared support for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

In January 2017, she tweeted a table of statistics that went viral, highlighting statistics that show that gun violence in the United States kills 11,737 people annually while terrorism in the United States kills 14 people annually. In December 2017, the tweet was mentioned by the Royal Statistical Society in the announcement of its "International Statistic of the Year" for 2017. On a trip to Uganda in October 2018, she and her husband met with President Yoweri Museveni. They had a press conference, and Kanye talked about tourism in Uganda. They were criticized for meeting Museveni due to his being a dictator and his recent crackdown on the opposition and the Ugandan LGBT community.

In April 2019, Vogue reported that Kardashian was studying to pass the bar exam; instead of attending law school, she is "reading law". In 2021, Kardashian said she had failed her first-year law exam (the baby bar) for a second time, performing "slightly worse" than her first attempt earlier in the year. In December 2021, she passed the "baby bar" law exam on her fourth attempt.

In 2020, Kardashian condemned the actions of Azerbaijan in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and expressed her support to Armenia and the Republic of Artsakh. On November 20, 2021, it was reported that Kardashian and the English soccer club Leeds United F.C. had financially helped female Afghan soccer players to make their way to England. The women and girls had escaped Afghanistan following the Taliban takeover, but were stranded in Pakistan.

Kardashian has also contributed to private GoFundMe causes, especially of people affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. In September 2021, she donated $3,000 to a mother of four who had lost her husband to COVID-19 and was about to be evicted from her home.

Filmography

Kim Kardashian, Superstar (2007)
Keeping Up with the Kardashians (2007–2021)
Disaster Movie (2008)
Kourtney and Kim Take Miami (2009–2013)
Kourtney and Kim Take New York (2011–2012)
Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor (2013)
Dash Dolls (2015)
PAW Patrol: The Movie (2021)
The Kardashians (2022)
American Horror Story: Delicate (2023)

Awards and nominations

Other awards