Kim Kardashian West: ‘I don’t regret anything’
In a candid interview, Kim Kardashian West opens up about domestic bliss with her “simple” husband Kanye West – and how “there comes a time when you stop making it about yourself.”
Stellar
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She is the most famous member of the most famous family in the world, with the possible exception of the British monarchy. (And to plenty of her fans, she might as well have been born into the royal family.)
Her surname is so famous it’s now shorthand – and its mere mention can elicit frenzied adulation, but also plenty of cynical eye-rolling.
Because, her critics like to ask, what has Kim Kardashian West done to earn such fame, aside from simply being famous for being famous?
The answer, in fact, is that she has done quite a lot. Despite now being worth an estimated $370 million dollars ($AU540 million), Kardashian West is a woman who works hard. And she is proud of it.
As she speaks to Stellar from the car while she whizzes around her hometown of Los Angeles, Kardashian West says credit for her work ethic lies with her parents, late father Robert Kardashian and mother Kris Jenner.
“I saw my dad work really hard and take everything extremely seriously,” she says. “And from my mum, [I learnt] to never give up.
“But I have also learnt a lot on the way from mistakes that have been made. You have to be willing to be OK with making mistakes, you have to learn things on your own, no matter what people tell you. Nothing’s going to be perfect.”
The young girl who would grow up to be a one-woman empire was fame-adjacent from the start. She and her siblings – sisters Kourtney, Khloé, Kendall and Kylie, and brother Rob – lived in exclusive LA enclaves, her lawyer father was friends with (and later defended) O.J. Simpson and she was an early stylist to Paris Hilton.
But Kardashian West, with help from her dogged “momager” Jenner, always had bigger plans.
Her family’s long-running reality TV show Keeping Up With The Kardashians – 17 seasons and counting – was just the first building block for a growing personal empire now comparable to some of the world’s most bankable brands.
At this point, Kardashian West’s name is so established that she can trade on it across multiple ventures – make-up line KKW Beauty, shapewear range Skims and the perfume brand KKW Fragrance – and rarely give interviews. She simply doesn’t need to anymore.
But Australia, she tells Stellar, is special to her. So it’s particularly significant that KKW Fragrance is soon to launch in Myer, which will be one of only two retailers worldwide to stock her perfume.
“It was really important for me to go into Australia because I personally love Australia so much – I’ve had so much amazing support from [you],” she says.
“For years, I remembered all of the appearances I would do in Australia. It does hold [a place] really close to my heart. And I’m so excited that I’m coming to Myer.”
And the feeling is mutual. “Australian women of all ages adore Kim, and we expect a very strong response when they launch instore and online,” says Allan Winstanley, chief merchandise officer at Myer.
“Kim is recognised and respected the world over, not only for entrepreneurship and hard work, but also for her love of fashion and unique style. She has a strong and loyal fan base here in Australia, and we know our customers are going to love and respond well to her range of fragrances.”
And lest those pesky critics question just how hands-on the 39-year-old is in creating the line, she insists she is across everything from brainstorming bottle designs to visiting the laboratory.
“Because I own the company, I don’t have a deadline where I’m having to put out a fragrance at a specific [date],” she says.
“I can really take my time to find something that’s really emotional to me. It’s a lot of work and a lot of pressure, but it’s really worth it if you take the time and invest back.”
For his part, Winstanley says the team at Myer can attest to Kardashian West’s strong work ethic. “She is involved in every facet from the development of each fragrance through to the packaging design and marketing – she is incredibly detail-oriented,” he says.
All of which means time is at a premium for the mum-of-four. “I micromanage everything,” she says. “My day is very thought out and very organised.”
She and husband of five years Kanye West share a quartet of young children – daughter North, six, and son Saint, three, and daughter Chicago, one, and son Psalm, six months, both born via surrogate.
“After one, I thought I’d be done,” she tells Stellar. “But I kept going and I’m really happy that I did. Four feels very completed. Growing up, I always said I was going to have four kids and... it happened! I can’t believe it happened.”
The pressures of tending to a young family and her multiple businesses are only compounded by the fact Kardashian West – perhaps inspired by her late father – is studying to be a lawyer and pursuing political activism, a pivot that has taken her to the US White House, where she campaigned for prison reforms.
She still posts regularly across her social media accounts – and the selfies haven’t stopped – but Kardashian admits to having pulled back on public appearances.
“I think I’ve become more private because I have work to do,” she says. “And not everyone wants to see all that work all the time. I’m definitely less fun with my friends, but that’s OK. I just have too much work to do, and I don’t really have time to hang out with [them] anymore.
“I said to everyone, ‘I’ll be back in four years when law school is done – I gotta focus!’”
Plus, she says, she wants to be present during her children’s formative years. “You have to give up a lot, but I heard that it goes by so quickly... that I’ll blink and they will be teenagers.”
Kardashian West still films regularly for her family’s juggernaut reality TV show and has put roughly every aspect of her life, from the triumphs to the low points, the mundane to the fabulous, on camera.
She is now an executive producer on Keeping Up With The Kardashians and has a say in the editing process, but Kardashian insists, “I don’t regret anything. You’re never going to be perfect; you’re always going to be evolving and changing.
“I think we’ll continue to film while it’s fun. It’s still fun. I love my life, I love filming, I love being a part of it. I love our crew, I love everyone that works on our show. I love working with my family.”
Her husband, of course, is no stranger to making headlines of his own – most recently with the rollout of his Jesus Is King album – however it’s a controversial image that’s at odds with the man Kardashian West knows behind closed doors.
“We love working together,” she says. “I think we work together more than people would even assume. He’s very definitive on what he likes – I can be indecisive: ‘Which font do you like better?’ He’ll know exactly which one, or he’ll find something even better.
“I actually have learnt a lot from my husband about saying no, and standing your ground on what you believe in, and not compromising for anything less than what you truly want to do.
“I think we really let each other explore our creative side,” she adds, revealing how she has had several conversations with him about her fragrances.
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“I want to do a campaign, and I’ll run an idea by him. Then he’ll think it’s a good idea, then we’ll have so much fun [talking about it]. It’s so much fun working with him. We’re both very respectful of each other and what each other wants.”
And far away from the reality TV cameras, the red carpets and the paparazzi who shadow their every move, the couple engages in the same simple give-and-take that defines millions of marriages around the world.
“We just get along, you know?” Kardashian West tells Stellar. “He’s very simple. If I bring him a warm brownie and ice-cream, he’s very happy, and that’ll win me points for, like, a good week.
“Yes, he’s very simple. And he lets me watch my TV shows that I want at night. Even when he wants to watch Rick And Morty all night long, and I want to watch Dateline, he lets me watch Dateline.”
Hold on. Dateline? That’s what Kardashian West is watching when she plops down at night in front of the TV?
“I have been able to figure out how to help people in need who are in prison,” the world’s most famous law student says of her recent plunge into criminal justice reform. “It makes me sad that our system is still so messed up.
“I think there comes a time in your life where you stop making it about yourself and start realising that, if you’re in the position to, there are other people [who] could use help,” she says. “And I’ve found that to be really true of mine.”
KKW Fragrance by Kim Kardashian West is available exclusively at Myer; myer.com.au.
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