- So let's talk about the 20th and final season of Keeping Up With the Kardashians.
- It's really crazy to look back and just to think 20 seasons, that's a long time. Just because we didn't really expect it to go on this long. We just were having fun and we genuinely love filming together as a family but I think we're all so happy. We made it to 20 seasons, like genuinely so excited.
- [Jonathan] Was there broad agreement that it was time, did everybody, were there any stragglers that didn't want it to end?
- I think we all went back and forth. We made the decision kind of last minute and kind of quickly and, we just all decided together. We were kind of unanimous and then we all called each other. I remember it was on a weekend and we had till the Monday to decide. And so on the Friday we were like, okay we're gonna do this. We're done and then we went back and Saturday we all called each other and was like, probably are we making the right decision? Are you sure we should do this? And we just kept on going back and forth on that.
And then we all were like, listen we're all gonna have to, we're all sentimental. We all really love doing this. And we love our crew so much that I think that was such a huge decision for us. 'Cause we loved seeing them and working with them. And they've been in our lives from season one. So it was an emotional decision but we all felt like it was the right decision.
- [Jonathan] So the finale takes place in Lake Tahoe and it's like the final family vacation for the show, right?
- Yeah.
- [Jonathan] And so we spoke on the phone I think just after you guys filmed it in December. And I remember you saying to me that you were kind of maybe surprised that you weren't more emotional, but that maybe were thought you might get emotional when the final interviews happened back in LA. And I just wondered if like did that moment ever come that sort of big?
- Yeah, I think my most emotional time was when we told our crew that we weren't gonna go forward after season 20. That was to me the most emotional week. I was so drained for literally an entire week after that just from all the calls and everyone reaching out and having all of that energy. That to me was the most emotional. I think I was also super emotional when my audio girl gave me my mic. She gave me my mic that I've had. And they tracked down with the serial numbers that it was my mic through the first 10 seasons. And then we switched to a different mic that they look identical I think for the last 10 seasons. But she gave me my original mic that I started with and gave every family member and exactly how it was labeled. They're all labeled with like a regular labeler. And it's just really special.
- [Jonathan] It's funny to think about the idea of only a sort of a reality show star that's been filmed for 20 seasons could like feel sentimental value in a microphone.
- I know, and like, just, I mean, even sitting in a chair for the last time, it was emotional, everything just I thought I'm really gonna miss these interviews. I miss all these people, but our crew is family to us, so that I think was the hardest part of letting go of the show, is just knowing that we won't see these people every day.
- So I started watching the show from the very first episode because remember I told you that I did not watch the show before I interviewed you in 2019 for the first time. Well, I finally went back and watched, starting from episode one and it's quite a chore. There's like 290 episodes and that's not even including all the spin-offs, which is I think 10 or 11 of them. Do you find like a reason to go back and look at something or?
- I haven't, every once in a while there'll be a some reruns on and I'll flip through it and see the outfits and think it's so funny, or just like loving reminiscing about the houses that we were in and just the things that we were doing. And I love seeing that but I haven't really gone back and watched.
- [Jonathan] Right, I really see you come to life. Like you find your voice and you find your footing like after a few years and then even the sound of your voice changes.
- I know that's the biggest mystery to me and my sisters. We are blown away. It's the thing that has us absolutely blown away. We have no idea what happened to our voices. We have completely different voices.
- [Jonathan] Your voice deepens.
- Yes, all of us do.
- [Jonathan] And that's what I sort of more it's just feels more commanding. You're like, even I'm just watching you become the person that I met a couple of years ago. Like, 'cause it was jarring in the beginning to watch you before you seem so young to me.
- Yeah, I was, I was, and all of those experiences, I mean I look back and I think, my God there's so many embarrassing things that are on TV for the world to see, but then you have to kind of just understand that I'm so grateful for also the evolution, 'cause I've learned so much. So I'm happy that we were able to be on for so long for people to see that. And to see now I can look back and kind of like laugh and, make fun of maybe my outfits or my voice or just even where we were emotionally. But we were also, I think the thing that I'm most proud about where like, we were just all in it together but people can really see that and they can see the evolution.
And I'm just so glad that we stuck around long enough for people to get that. And for me to even personally have those experiences 'cause I used to think before I'm, trying to rush, being a mom and trying to rush all of that and you see that. And I'm so glad I remember my dad used to always tell me wait until you're like early thirties or mid thirties before you have babies, trust me, just wait, don't do it in your early twenties or it'll just be the right time. And he was so right. And I always thought about that even if my friends or Courteney were having babies so much earlier I just knew when it finally was my time that it was the right time. And I'm so glad that my kids get this version of me rather than the 20 something year old version of me. And that makes me, just proud to see all of that on TV. And one day I can show that back to them, if they're ever interested.
- [Jonathan] It's an amazing sort of you are a person who likes to archive and save things and-
Everything.
- [Jonathan] And you're, as I think you said to me on the phone one day that if you saw how organized I was, you'd freak, like and the show is an archive in that way.
- Just to have all of those memories and home videos like the most well shot home videos continuously for almost 15 years. That's amazing. I grew up with so many home videos. That's why we kind of intertwined them. You see a lot of flashbacks and you see a lot of cuts of us as kids in the show because we just had so much footage of us growing up. 'Cause that's all my dad did with video everything. And so it's kind of like a continuum of that.
- [Jonathan] One of the things that Cici said to me that I loved was I was basically trying to get her to say, answer the question, why do you think so many millions of people around the world have connected with this family? And she said, "well, part of it is "that Kim is one of the authors of social media." And I just thought that was such an interesting way to put it being an author myself, that you sort of wrote the book on it in a way, you know what I mean? And I wondered how that strikes you and how you see your role in the rise of social media.
- I wouldn't have looked at it that way but it's interesting to think about it like that. I would definitely say, and I've heard this before is that I've definitely realized how to use social media as a tool to enhance my business and how to use it as a focus group. And I always would take everything that I was working on and put a little piece of it out there on social media to get a reaction, to get that focus group of questions that I needed answer, colors I couldn't pick sense I couldn't pick, I would always show people a little bit of my design and have them be a part of that world with me and feel it happened organically. But I realized later it made the fun or the customer feel like they're invested in that product because they helped me pick the color of the bottle. They helped with my decision process along the way, it's not as easy as it looks though. It does look very easy on the internet whether it's, promoting makeup or, Skims or anything that I'm doing it's a full-time job and it's extremely time consuming. And it's not as easy as it may appear to some people.
- Yeah, it's funny I interviewed Ashley Graham for Vogue and I followed her around one afternoon when she was interviewing Gayle King. And before anybody said a single word about anything to do with the interview they could not stop convincing about Skims because they'd both gotten a package I think from you. And they were talking about Martha Stewart being so excited about Skims. And that's kind of how I knew that the whole thing was gonna be kind of huge .
- Yes, she stopped me at a party. I'll never forget it. I'm obsessed with Martha Stewart. So I was walking in New York and I hear like, "Kim Kim" and I turn around and she's like, "I just need Skims, I love it." And I was like, "Anything for you." Like it was just such a proud moment that like Martha Stewart wanted Skims.
- Well I just thought right away, it was like Gayle, Ashley, Martha Stewart. Like you, you start to see a pattern of like women of age at different ages shapes and sizes. That all were really obsessed right away before it even started.
- I got the sweetest letter handwritten letter from Kathy Bates about Skims and loving Skims. And that made my day and we have to get her in a campaign. We're doing campaign with her.
- [Jonathan] How did you decide that instead of shoes or a full collection of high fashion to do shapewear.
- I always try to see what I'm obsessed with and what's a necessity in my life. And if it's not perfect how can I try to make something that is? And the one huge gap that I felt like was missing in shapewear was just color range. There was probably one shade of nude black and maybe a darker nude if that but it was usually just two tones from every company that I ever saw was just one new that was too light for me and then a black. And so I would take that and put it in the sink and put coffee bags and teabags and let it sit there and soak and diet to get it to be a darker shade of nude.
And I just thought this doesn't make sense. There's so many different skin tones. If I can't find mine, I know my daughter, when she wants it she's not gonna be able to find hers. And so we started a line of shapewear and that's it. I wanted the company to be really very specific and have really innovative shapewear, I was very specific about my fabric, I must've tried it on for, a whole year making sure that we had the perfect fabric.
And then by the time I designed loungewear and I really wanted cute stuff that you wear around the house. 'Cause when I come home, I like to be really comfortable. Then the pandemic hit at like our first or second drop of loungewear. And we had loungewear designed for the whole next year to drop. And it just happened to be the perfect time and the perfect storm of everyone just staying home and wanting to just be a lot more comfortable. So it's just honestly, it's my heart and soul, I love it. There's obviously been brands that I'd been a fan of before Skims came along.
But to me, I never just felt like anything was the way that I would have done it. And so I really started from scratch in my head about the items and the pieces that I really felt like there was a need for. So I love that, people will say like, you made shapewear cool again. And I just, it is what it is like I need it. I'm never one to shy away from saying things that I wear, under my clothes or give all my girlfriends tips or walk around just in my Skims and show people shapewear. So I think that it made people also maybe a younger audience of people to feel comfortable, wanting to wear shapewear and wanting to just feel good about themselves no matter how old or young they are.
- So I was Zooming with my shrink the other day trying to keep my sessions going during the pandemic. And she said a really fascinating thing that I hadn't thought about before, which was that one of the benefits of having stopped living your life for a year many people have found that they can now sort of decide or choose what to put back on their plate. And I'm just sort of curious what you are choosing to put back on your plate after all of this.
- Absolutely, I think that this year has been so challenging for so many people but I also think that this year was a huge cleanse and just a huge opportunity for people to really be grateful for the simple things. And that is a huge, I think, awakening that so many people had and just who you want to spend your time with the people that you'll allow into your home because everything is so scary and everyone's afraid of everything. I mean, just even the amount of time that I know me and all my parent friends have spent with our children has been so beautiful that we get this time. I always try to look at things in the positive way. So, even though it's been such a challenging year I think it's been a time to regenerate, get creative, spend so much time with family. And just this time that I've been able to spend with my children has been, priceless. And it's been, that part has been so beautiful just knowing that when we do start to fill our plates back up I hope that we don't fill them up with things that don't make us happy. And I hope that, even the work schedule I used to work nonstop and I would have done anything and everything at all hours and never taken into consideration just slowing down at all. I think it's, I think it was needed.
- [Jonathan] Yeah, I would love to hear a little bit about what's coming up in your life in that regard.
- Yeah, so I'm still in law school. I have two years left and so I have two years under my belt and it's, I'm ramping it up now. So I have about like six hours every day. I actually am not doing an essay and doing this interview instead. So I'm gonna have to get up really early tomorrow and write like a two hour essay. I'm really hopeful in that I'm working on like a handful of cases. I'm also doing a Spotify podcast with me and a woman named Lori Rothschild She's amazing, she's a producer that found Kevin Keith's case which I believe to be an innocence case of a man that's wrongfully convicted for a quadruple homicide and really working. He's been in for over 25 years now. So really working abolishing the death penalty is like so high on my list. And as I have clients that, have gone through close situations like Julius Jones, in Oklahoma City, that I'm really fighting for, it's just it really makes you stop and just feel that you can't sit still until they write all of these wrongs.
- [Jonathan] I was and this is the last question I was on the phone with Lady Gaga was publicist the other day. We somehow decided that there was something punk rock about you that you're not calculated. And that kind of fuck the haters. And I dare you to look away kind of presence that you have, you know what I mean?
- Yeah.
- [Jonathan] And I just, but it was an interesting moment of like celebrating something about you that was very specific.
- Thank you.
- [Jonathan] And I wondered if there's something punk about you. It's like-
- I think so. I remember having this conversation with Riccardo Tisci because when I went to my first Met Gala, the theme was punk. And I was like, what is this, what am I going to wear? I would have done anything to go. And he was just like, fuck it. You're punk, like that's, it is what it is. And I get that. And as I'm I think more confident in myself, I get that more. And I think punk is just an attitude. It just means that you live your life your way and beat to your own drum. And hopefully that makes people, inspire people to want to do that for themselves.
- Perfect, perfect, ending.
- Cool.
- Thanks, great.
- My God so fun.
- An absolute delight. This is great.
- Whenever you need, I love talking to you, so.
- I know, I love talking to you too.
- I could sit here all day.
- I could do the same thing. I feel the same way.
