Kim Kardashian’s authorized biography “Citizen Kim: The Woman Who Created the Future” landed in stores Tuesday, and the revelations are already sending shockwaves through her inner circle.
Journalist Jonathan Van Meter spent extensive time with Kardashian, 44, for the book, which unpacks decades of family secrets, marital turmoil, and the calculated mythology behind her global fame. Within days of publication, multiple relatives and exes found their private histories exposed to a mass audience.
Kris Jenner, 70, allegedly reacted with fury upon learning Van Meter had included her 1989 affair with a soccer player in his 20s — the indiscretion that ended her marriage to Robert Kardashian Sr. “Why did Kim drag us all into this? Why is my affair from 30 years ago in the book?” Van Meter recalled Jenner demanding, claiming she “flipped out on camera” during the confrontation. Kardashian herself confirmed the family had long known about the relationship, telling Van Meter, “We knew my mom was dating, because we would see it. She introduced us to her boyfriend. He was 10 years younger. He was kind of like a playboy.” Though the athlete goes unnamed in the book, Jenner has previously identified Todd Waterman as her affair partner, calling it “my life’s biggest regret.”
The biography also excavates Kardashian’s brief, volatile first marriage to music producer Damon Thomas, now 55, whom she eloped with at 19 in 2000. Court filings from her 2003 divorce proceedings contain what Van Meter calls “one of the most shocking details” of the entire book: Thomas allegedly showed Robert Sr. Nude photographs of one of Kardashian’s sisters, then delivered gift-wrapped copies to her best friend’s workplace in Encino. Kardashian claimed in the documents that Thomas told her father, “Your daughters are whores, and I have the pictures to prove it,” and that “he then made packages and sent the pictures gift-wrapped to my best friend’s place of employment in Encino to scare us.”
Robert Sr. Died of esophageal cancer later that same year, and Kardashian shared her final exchange with him in the book. “The last thing my dad ever said to me was, ‘I know you’re going to be good — I can see it. It’s as if I can see what your whole life is going to be like,'” she told Van Meter, describing how he placed his hand on her leg while they watched a movie together. “And he said, ‘You’ll be fine. But take care of the other ones. And make sure your brother’s good.'” She also recited her own last words to him: “Dad, thank you so much for everything that you’ve taught me, from how to be a good person to how you did my homework with me, everything I’m going to do with my kids one day. And I’m going to take the lesson of you being in my life and carry that forward.”
Kanye West, 47, occupies substantial territory in “Citizen Kim,” with Van Meter chronicling behavior that ranged from eccentric to allegedly dangerous. The rapper, who married Kardashian in 2014 and finalized their divorce in 2022, once showed up unannounced at a multimillion-dollar Tadao Ando-designed mansion in Malibu and camped out for four days. According to Van Meter, West rang the intercom and announced, “Hi, it’s Kanye,” then escalated when the homeowner hesitated: “If Elvis Presley came to your door and rang your buzzer, would you let him in? This is that.” He proceeded to install his “office” by the pool and hold meetings because he “wanted to feel the vibe of working in an Ando.” Beyoncé and Jay-Z later purchased that same property for $200 million in 2023.
West’s first Yeezy paycheck funded a second engagement ring for Kardashian in 2016 — a 20-plus-carat diamond with “Adidas” engraved inside the band, which Van Meter dubbed “the least romantic gesture imaginable.” Kardashian recalled wearing both rings to one of his New York City concerts and reposting fan footage of the display, prompting West to warn her, “Don’t ever do that again — you’re just looking to get robbed. … I’m flashy, but that’s crazy even for me.” The warning came months before she was robbed at gunpoint in Paris that October.
The book’s most alarming episode involves a 2018 trip to Uganda, where Kardashian and West were filming for “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.” Executive producer Farnaz Farjam told Van Meter that West grew “paranoid and agitated” at their remote location and convinced local police that people were trying to drug him. “He basically got the local police to believe that there were people trying to drug him, and so they came and they had guns out. He had them raid everybody’s rooms,” Farjam recounted. “At one point, one of the policemen had a gun to Kim’s head.” Farjam described the situation as “intense” and arranged an emergency private jet to extract her crew, later forgiving West after attributing his behavior to an unmedicated bipolar manic episode.
Co-parenting their four children — North, 13, Saint, 10, Chicago, 8, and Psalm, 7 — remains what Kardashian calls “a big burden,” She told Van Meter, “Oh, I worry about [West] all day. All the time. That’s the father of my kids, I’ll never not worry about him. And that’s a big burden of having kids with someone who you don’t necessarily get along with. My kids would never know that.” She maintains an “open-door policy” for West and his relatives, with whom she says she remains “really close,” though their actual contact is sparse. “It’s been pretty smooth for a while. I guess because we don’t talk that much. But when we see each other, we give each other a hug,” she explained. Most communication now flows “through his wife,” Bianca Censori, or through West’s manager-friend. During Van Meter’s interview at her home, Kardashian took a call from “Team Kanye” arranging children’s visits. “It is challenging co-parenting with someone who comes by every few months, but I’m always like, ‘Oh, Dad’s traveling,'” she shared. “I still make up stories and protect them because I want them to think their dad is the greatest.”
Amid the heavier disclosures, the book captures Kardashian’s idiosyncratic approach to art collecting. Her first major purchase, a Claude Monet painting, stemmed not from gallery visits or West’s tutelage but from her devotion to the 1995 film “Clueless.” “The first real piece of art that I bought — myself — was a Monet. Because in the movie they called the girls ‘a Monet’ if they look good from afar, but up close they’re just a mess,” she told Van Meter, who found the explanation “extravagantly implausible.” The acquisition was “a piece of high school nostalgia,” he writes, rather than any developed aesthetic philosophy.
The biography arrives as Kardashian continues expanding her Skims empire and pursuing her law apprenticeship, with the book’s disclosures certain to fuel fresh cycles of coverage about the boundaries she maintains between public narrative and private pain.
