Paris: Kim Kardashian said a masked man pulled her toward him in a Paris hotel room during the 2016 jewelry robbery that changed her life, a silent prayer – for her sister, best friend, her family – one of her masked man pulled her toward him. She was wearing a bathrobe. Her hands were zipped. Her mouth was recorded. She thought she would not survive.
“I’m sure this is the moment he’s going to rape me,” she told the Paris court on Tuesday. “I definitely think I’m going to die.”
She said she was about to go to bed when she heard the stairs trampled. At first, she thought it was her sister Kourtney and a friend who returned from an evening at Paris Fashion Week.
“Hello? Hello? Who is it?” she shouted out. Then the masked man rushed into the room.
She grabbed the phone, but didn’t know the French emergency number. She tried to call her sister and bodyguard, but one person stopped her. The men threw her on the bed, zipped her hands, and pressed the gun at her.
“I have a baby,” Kardashian said, according to her testimony. “I have to get it home. They can take everything away. I just have to get it home.”
She was taken into the bathroom. One person recorded her mouth. She was told that if she kept quiet she would be fine.
Kardashian was locked in a marble bathroom when she saw police saying the man robbed her, while masked assailants stole more than $6 million in jewelry. Nearly a decade later, she faced them again – this time from the witness stands.
Her testimony marks the emotional climax of a trial that has plagued France and rekindled debates about the cost of fame and what it means in public places.
After digitizing bread crumbs during the robbery, Kardashian is one of the most well-known women on the planet. Fashion icon. Reality show star. Billionaire business tycoon. She has mastered a new kind of celebrity – live streaming, posts to millions of followers.
But in the early morning of October 3, 2016, this visibility became a weapon against her. The robbery was a turning point for Kardashian and how the world understood the vulnerability of the digital age.
Investigators believe the attackers followed Kardashian’s digital breadcrumbs (images, timestamps, geotags) and exploited them with old-fashioned criminal methods.
Kardashian was dressed in black and provocatively shiny diamonds on Tuesday, opposite her mother, Kris Jenner, in a tough courtroom. Her voice shivered as she thanked the French authorities for “allowing me to share my truth.”
She described how the attacker disguised himself as a policeman, dragging the concierge to the concierge upstairs in handcuffs. “I think it’s some kind of terrorist attack,” she said.
An attacker directed her diamond ring. “He said, ‘Ring! Ring!’ He pointed at his hand,” she recalled.
French prosecutors said the attackers (in the 60s and 70s) were part of experienced crime rings. The two defendants admitted to being on the scene. One claimed he didn’t know who she was.
Twelve suspects were initially charged. After that, one person died. Another was forgiven for being ill. French media called them Les Papys Braqueurs – “Grandpa robbers” – but prosecutors insist they are not harmless retirees.
They face charges, including armed robbery, kidnapping and membership of criminal gangs, which have life imprisonment.
‘Take everything away. I need a life” After the man ran away, Kardashian wiped the tape on the bathroom sink to free her hands. She jumped downstairs, still tied up to find her friend and designer Simone Harouche. They feared the robbers might return, and they entered the balcony, hiding in the bushes. While lying there, Kardashian called her mother.
Earlier in the trial, Harouche recalled Kardashian screaming upstairs: “‘I need life.” She kept saying, “I need life.”
Harouche locked herself in the bathroom and texted Kardashian’s sister and bodyguard: “Something is wrong.” Later, she heard Kardashian jump down the stairs, her ankles still tied. “She is next to herself,” Harouche said. “She was just screaming.”
Judge David de Pas asked whether Kardashian had posted his own images with “great value jewels” to make himself a target. Harouche rejected the premise. “Just because a woman is wearing jewelry, it doesn’t make her a target,” she said. “It’s like saying that because a woman is wearing a short skirt, she should be raped.”
After the robbery, critics like designer Karl Lagerfeld slammed Kardashian for showing off her wealth, Lagerfeld told the Associated Press that she was “too public” about jewelry. However, as the details of the robbery emerged, public opinion became sympathetic.
The robbery triggered a cultural shift that prompted PR staff and managers to urge clients to postpone social media posts, delete location tags and think twice before flashing luxury items online. But, it is said that Kardashian’s own image continues to complicate this narrative. Even as she testified on Tuesday, reporters received a press release touting her Paris court appearance: “Kim Kardashian was in a coma… wearing a $1.5 million diamond necklace from Samer Halimeh New York, and 80 flawed diamonds in New York.” It seems that visibility remains currency.
She told the court that her house in Los Angeles was soon robbed, which seemed to be a parody attack. Without security guards, she said, “I can’t even fall asleep at night.” She now keeps four to six guards at home.
“I started to get phobia of going out,” Kardashian said. “This experience really changed everything for us.”
She said her bodyguard lived in a separate hotel during the robbery in 2016: “We assumed that if we were in the hotel, it was safe, it was safe.”
Paris used to be a shelter, she walked alone at 3 or 4 a.m., shopping and sometimes stopped for hot chocolate. “It always feels really safe,” she said. “It’s always a magical place.”
Kardashian, who is studying herself as a lawyer, said she is grateful for the opportunity to “tell my truth” in a crowded Paris court.
“This is my closing,” she said. “This is what I hope to give up.”
