During Simpson’s 1995 mur.der trial, Robert Kardashian, who was married to Kris Jenner from 1978 to 1991, gained prominence as one of Simpson’s defense attorneys.
The 67-year-old momager admitted in her 2011 memoir Kris Jenner… and All Things Kardashian that her business decisions have always been highly “calculated.”
“I began to compare our careers to chessboard pieces. Every morning, upon entering my office, I asked myself, “What action do you need to take today?” “She authored the book. “It was very deliberate. My business decisions and strategies were very deliberate, definite, and meticulously planned.”
When Jenner first pitched her idea for a reality television show to E! producer Ryan Seacrest, he was skeptical. The Live With Kelly and Ryan host, aged 47, was looking for a new show following the success of The Osbournes, which chronicled the lives of Ozzy Osbourne, his wife Sharon, and their children Jack and Kelly.
He told Access in 2013: “I had seen The Osbournes and, because I had formed a production company, I thought we should find something in this vein.” “And at the time, we had heard that Kris was interested in working with the family, so it was just myself and one other man at the company. I had to purchase a video camera for this shoot in order to attend the Sunday barbecue. And I recall asking myself, “Will this expenditure of X [company] dollars be worthwhile?””
Seacrest proceeded, “We ascended and filmed a family barbecue on a Sunday. They were all together, being as wild, amusing, and loving as they are, and I returned to find them throwing each other into the pool. And I thought, “Oh my God, we have to show this to E!,” so we pitched it to the folks at E!, who said, “Let’s do it.” Let’s go all out. We had no idea that the pop culture industry would become so massive.”
The first episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians aired on October 14, 2007 and the final episode aired on June 20, 2021. The premiere of their Hulu series The Kardashians was in April 2022.
Despite the popularity of the shows, a survey of 1,500 U.S. adults conducted by Redfield & Wilton for Newsweek on December 5 found that 33 percent of Americans believe the Kardashians’ influence on popular culture has decreased over the past year.
Compared to 19 percent who believed the family’s influence had grown, 22 percent believed it had remained the same, and the remaining respondents were unsure.
In addition, 47 percent of respondents believed that celebrity parents such as Kim Kardashian should not post photos of their children on social media. Nineteen percent of respondents supported the right of celebrity parents to post pictures of their children online, while the remaining respondents were unsure.
Psychotherapist MJ Corey, who runs the Kardashian Kolloquium website, previously told Newsweek that the Kardashians “permanently altered pop culture.”
“I see synergy between the content produced by the Kardashians and the evolution of media as a whole. Kris Jenner herself has stated that there was a “perfect storm” of new applications at the helm of Kim’s career—Instagram and Twitter—and that Kim became extremely proficient in those platforms just as they were gaining popularity. I consider Kim to be the originator or, at the very least, the ultimate influencer.”
She added that Kim Kardashian “really opened the door for this new form of fame” and that over the years, the reality star’s “relevance” has become “difficult to deny, especially because the family is multi-generational and because Kim is angling herself into unanticipated domains such as law and finance.”
Corey concluded, “Kim’s dedication to growth parallels the algorithms to which we are all addicted.” She resembles a living video game, and we’re witnessing a new type of star expand beyond our wildest expectations.