How much more is there to find out about someone who lives her entire life on the internet? Quite a bit, as it turns out. Kim Kardashian, the first guest on season 3 of David Letterman's My Next Guest Needs No Introduction on Netflix, amuses her host by initially describing how a single Instagram post can net her a lifetime's worth of hair extensions. There are more serious discussions, about working with the White House to ensure clemency for prisoners, her former stepfather's transition into a woman and how the OJ Simpson murder trial tore her family apart. Here are 4 major takeaways.
Kim's father Robert was good friends with footballer OJ Simpson, while her mother Kris had befriended his wife, Nicole. The murders of Nicole and her friend Ron in 1994 split the Kardashian family in half, with Robert convinced of OJ's innocence and Kris sure that he had killed her best friend. When Robert, one of OJ's lawyers, took Kim and Kourtney out of school to watch the trial, they found their mother sitting on Nicole's side. "Kourtney and I were sitting right behind OJ. We look over at my mom and she's giving us the death stare," Kim recalls. The public scrutiny was intense, with one news channel mistakenly identifying her as her father's mistress instead of his daughter.
Kim spoke about seeing her former stepfather Bruce (who later transitioned into Caitlyn) in women's clothing for the first time at age 26, when she was still living with her parents. On a day when her mother was out of town, she went into the garage and saw Caitlyn in a dress, heels, makeup and a wig. "I walked right past her, into my room and packed a bag so fast," Kim recalls. She drove to Kourtney's house, where the two looked for answers on the internet, finding only an Oprah episode about a transgender woman. Caitlyn asked her to keep what she saw a secret as she hadn't told Kris yet. Four years later, she came over and explained to Kim that she'd had these feelings since she was four and only recently felt that it was okay to be herself.
Kim describes the leak as embarrassing, saying, 'I was in my early 20s. I think everyone makes stupid choices and decisions when they're that young." What helped her get through it was the support of family, especially her mother and grandmother.
Three years ago, during Paris Fashion Week, Kim was alone at her apartment when she was robbed in the middle of the night, an incident during which she remembers thinking she was going to die. On the show, she recalls a conversation with her friends that took place just a few hours before the incident happened that day. "We said: What would you do if you were robbed? Would you just give them the stuff? Why did we have this conversation? It was so wild." That night, she heard stomping at the stairs at 3 am and immediate panic set in once she realized it wasn't her sister or her friend. Two robbers dressed as policemen snatched her phone, demanded an expensive ring Kanye had gifted her and then tied her up using duct tape and zip ties. They were eventually arrested, leading Kim to realize they had been tracking her whereabouts for two years leading up to the robbery.