The New Yorker:

When the star was robbed at gunpoint, in 2016, the incident announced her graduation into something greater than a glorified Instagram influencer. Now her courtroom testimony is just another cog in her family’s media machinations.

By M. J. Corey

The sun hasn’t yet risen in Paris, and I’m waiting outside the Palais de Justice to watch Kim Kardashian testify against the so-called grandpa robbers—a gang of career criminals, many of whom were in their fifties and sixties, who bound and gagged her in her penthouse suite, during Paris Fashion Week in October, 2016, and stole millions of dollars’ worth of jewelry. At the time, Kardashian was still in the midst of proving that she was the kind of figure who even belonged at Fashion Week; back then, the culture still differentiated between social-media stars and real stars. The heist announced Kardashian’s graduation into something greater than a glorified Instagram influencer, earning her right to the city’s fashion scene through trauma and eliciting public sympathy from the mayor of Paris. The event also provoked a stream of news headlines and social-media conversations about whether the attack had been a publicity stunt, whether her conspicuous consumption had made her an inevitable target, and whether we should allow the robbery to humanize her at all. This media cycle was ultimately eclipsed, less than a month later, by the election of Donald Trump as President—another figure who was known for his savvy use of social media, and who, like Kardashian, was seen as famous for being famous.

Most of the journalists I spoke with in Paris anticipated mayhem on the day of Kardashian’s testimony. “They’re preparing for superfans camping overnight,” one told me. Another suggested that I arrive at 5 a.m., three and a half hours before the doors would open, to guarantee myself a spot in the courtroom. As it turned out, the hype would be contained to the press entrance down the block, where ABC and CNN had been waiting since my predawn arrival, and where the line behind them grew longer minute by minute. It would be hours until anyone else arrived in the public-access line. Eventually, I’m joined by a young superfan named Vincent, who has come prepared with a stack of photos of Kardashian’s Met Gala looks over the years, including her most recent, a rather uncontroversial leather ode to rocker Lenny Kravitz—a far cry from what some might have expected her to wear a decade ago for a Black-dandyism theme.

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