After months of noticeable silence and dancing around the subject in brief statements and vague comments without ever naming names, Kim Kardashian is finally addressing the (antisemitic) elephant in the room: her ex-husband Kanye West.
Season Three of Hulu’s The Kardashians premiered on Thursday, and it’s safe to say a lot has happened between the time cameras stopped rolling shortly after the 2022 Met Gala to when they resumed filming later that fall. But if you thought the show would dive right into the juicy stuff, you clearly haven’t been Keeping Up with the Kardashians all these years — because if there is one thing the famous family love, it’s some unnecessary fluff. In characteristic fashion, the show opened with an incredibly pointless — and cringe — scene of the family filming a “music video” opener for the show, complete with Kim, Khloé Kardashian, Kourtney Kardashian, Kris Jenner, Kylie Jenner, and Kendall Jenner all in varying spandex onesies while on rollerskates.
“We’re rollerskating because why not? We wanted a music video. It’s fun,” Kim said as the rest of the world sighed.
But while the show may be content with boring viewers with clearly planned and planted plotlines (like Kylie wanting to learn to drive a stick-shift? pass), here at Rolling Stone, we respect you, dear readers, far too much to do the same. So, let’s get down to business.
One of the biggest differences between Season Two and Three is Kim’s relationship status: Kim and Pete Davidson broke up just one month before cameras picked back up for the new season.
“I’m single, and I’m not ready to mingle,” Kim said when asked by producers about her current dating life during a confessional interview. She gave a much more philosophical response while talking to Khloé and Scott Disick, declaring, “Breakups are just not my thing.” And as Disick, the oft-surprising voice of reason on the series, so astutely pointed out, “Are they anybody’s thing?”
Kim kept her discussion about Davidson brief, offering little as to why the two ultimately decided to call it quits. “We just had talks and talks. Like, we had been talking about it. So, it was both of us just communicating really well about it. It’s obviously sad,” she said. “I don’t have random hookups and relationships.”
At the time of their split, sources cited the couple’s busy schedules and long-distance relationship as the reason behind the breakup. But their relationship was also put under another stress: that of Kanye West. The rapper infamously called out Davidson in a track on his album Donda 2 and unleashed numerous social media tirades against the comedian, targeting his past struggles with addiction and mental health issues.
“There was a lot of guilt,” Kim said, referencing the drama between West and Davidson. “He went through a lot because of my relationship.”
Speaking of West — the first real mention of the rapper and his drama came in passing when Kim joked about the stress causing her psoriasis to flare up: “Tell the father of my children to stop acting up, and then I won’t stress out and get psoriasis.”
Now, the timing here is important. While it’s usually almost impossible to tell exactly when any given scene was filmed (the show is known for sticking scenes filmed months apart into a single episode to make them appear to have occurred together much closer than they really did), it’s safe to say the timeline of the first few episodes of the new season would fall somewhere between September – December 2022.
Unless you’ve managed to live under a rock, then you probably recall that late 2022 was the same time that West was essentially on an antisemitic press tour. West first sparked the stream of controversy at his Yeezy fashion show in October when he wore a “White Lives Matter” shirt. Refusing to back down from the backlash, West then double-downed on his offensive opinions and accused the “Jewish media” of censoring him and having an agenda against him. After threatening to go “death con 3 on Jewish people,” and continuing to spew the same hateful rhetoric on various platforms and interviews, several companies cut ties with him, including JP Morgan Chase, CAA, Vogue, Balenciaga, and, most notably, Adidas, who terminated their billion-dollar deal with the rapper.
Kris Jenner, James Corden, and Kylie Jenner in the Season Three premiere of ‘The Kardashians.’
Hulu
But while West seemingly refused to shut up, absolute crickets came from the Kardashian camp. Early on in the controversy, Kim denounced her ex-husband’s words in a two-sentence tweet without even naming him. “Hate speech is never OK or excusable,” Kim wrote on Instagram. “I stand together with the Jewish community and call on the terrible violence and hateful rhetoric towards them to come to an immediate end.” But after that, nothing.
On Thursday’s premiere episode, Kim finally shed some light on why she was so quiet during a time when people were literally begging for her to speak out and take a harder stance against West.
“There’s been a lot going on with Kanye right now. Things are going on in the media — radio shows and interviews,” she said at the very end of the episode. “Even through all the craziness of everything that Kanye says about us, I never comment, I never post. He has made up the most insane narrative about [Kris] and the [sex] tape. We stay silent through all the lies, all the stuff.”
“I think at this point I just assume everything I text Kanye is going to be put on the internet,” she added. “I think I can handle anything. I just get really heartbroken for my mom, that she has to deal with so much.” (In more than one of his Instagram tirades, West repeatedly went after Kris, accusing the matriarch of pushing her kids into appearing in “playboy and sex tapes,” out of fear that his own kids would be made to participate in that in the future.
“All of his shenanigans, I don’t even know what the fuck to call it, is going to be far more damaging to the kids one day, than my tape will ever be. And I have to sit here and not say anything, ever, because I know one day my kids will appreciate that.”
Kim said she refuses to be the reason her children have a sour relationship with their father and that as much as his words and actions might hurt her, she does her best to put on a happy face in front of their four kids.
“I will be his biggest cheerleader to them forever,” she said. “One day, when they see for themselves, I’ll answer whatever they want me to, but it’s just… a lot.”
Kim went on to directly address the long-running rumor fueled by West that she cheated on him during their marriage with Drake. “So the person that’s supposed to protect me the most publicly would accuse me of having an affair our whole marriage. I really can’t wrap my head around how he thinks he is a protector.”
Breaking down into tears, Kim expressed her utter exhaustion from being caught up in his shitstorm. “I don’t want to be a part of this narrative and it’s like, when is this ever going to end?” she asked. “It’s just always so intense. I don’t want to engage in a public feud with him.”
“I’m stuck with this for the rest of my life.”