Let them eat pixels: Kim Kardashian interviewed by Michael Holden.

‘Brain health is very important,’ says Kim Kardashian. This strikes me as funny, because I had been wondering about her effect on my brain, yours, and perhaps human consciousness itself. That might sound grandiose, but to think in Kim terms is to think in big ways. At this level, the smallest gestures can have huge effects. When the world’s most famous woman cavorts with the world’s most infamous robot, be assured that somewhere, minds are blowing.

The first thing to know about Kim Kardashian is that there is so much one might know about her that she is in some respects unknowable. You could spend the rest of your life reading about her, watching her, trying to assimilate reactions to her and still have nothing definitive to say. Every time I thought I knew something of what she had done or what she was doing, she had then done something else. Launched garments, cooked breakfasts, filmed both, artfully shared pictures of her anatomy with a cross-platform social media audience that nudges half a billion, recorded a TV show and broken her foot – all of which had generated further commentary, adding to the ever-rising total of things about Kim which cannot be wholly known. There may be a server somewhere that can handle it, but as far as the human mind goes, forget it. This might explain why she is enacting an elopement with an android – she may have nowhere else to turn.

One way to deal with the breadth of material might be to call in experts, specialist counsel and so on. This would be appropriate – the shortest possible version of the Kim Kardashian story begins in court. Her late father Robert was a lawyer who came to public attention when he became part of his friend OJ Simpson’s legal team in 1994. In 2007 the show Keeping up with the Kardashians debuted and in combination with a series of adjacent spectacles and scandals, abetted by the rise of the smartphone and social media, the family and its extended inner circle ascended to an unprecedented level and type of collective fame. Under Kris Jenner’s auspices, the show became their show – the foundation of an empire run at no one’s behest or profit but its own. Kim’s relationship with Kanye West, with whom she has four children, helped set her as first among equals in a hub of industrialised notoriety and influence whose cast, connotation, wealth and reach (the last two in the billions) do indeed test comprehension – and its host, the brain. So, specialist counsel might be one way to go about it. The other is to question Kim directly, a request she agreed to with notably few preconditions for someone in such consistent, independent contact with her audience and customers that they need never submit to journalistic enquiry again.

Kim pops up on Zoom like anyone else – except this is Kim Kardashian, and the boundless, bright space where she is reclining (because of the broken foot) is not some digital background; she lives in the world from which backgrounds are made. ‘It’s a rental,’ she qualifies. It appears flawless, if impersonal. ‘I look horrendous,’ she adds, but like the house, this is not the case.

‘Brain health is very important’ to Kim in part because she is taking the California bar exam later this year. Her legal studies, she says, are to further her ability to advocate for justice reform. She was in a clemency meeting at the White House, on behalf of a prisoner, ‘and it was so intimidating. I truly didn’t understand a lot of the lawyer lingo that was being said, and I grew up in a lawyer-lingo house.’ There is more to this though than just being a better advocate, even if ‘helping people is my number one goal’. While the aim might be altruistic, there may be deeper instincts in play. Bringing an attorney everywhere ‘felt like a roadblock to me’, and so she is becoming one. Later she will state that (in respect of her injury) ‘I hate feeling slowed down and I hate feeling forced to slow down’. It shouldn’t need saying, but what this denotes is drive. It can be tempting to look at certain strands and strata of celebrity as fortunate or frivolous, but this is someone with both hands on the wheel, even with one foot in plaster. She does concede that ‘it is harder to memorise stuff’ in your forties, and this is useful since it demonstrates that she is human, because, as she will come to say and signify, there are times when this might not appear to be the case.

Weeks previously, prior to this conversation, Kim’s team announced that she had, with Elon Musk’s approval, been offered access to Tesla’s prototype humanoid robot for the photoshoot; Kim then offered her beach house as a location. This is why she appears to have set up home with Robocop. The movie reference is playful but apposite. Terminator’s dystopia was set in 2029; things are afoot with AI which elude human foresight, to say nothing of the ambivalence of these particular machines’ de facto creator. We are clearly on the cusp of or inside a defining moment about what it means to be human, as well as what the power of those who purvey and profit from our inhuman accessories can or should achieve. So on the one hand we have some striking images of a tech-enabled female superstar liaising with a masculine android at the edge of a continent. On the other is what this might represent, a symbolic union of spirit and matter, the wedding photos of a transhumanist future – or, if you really want to get excited, the end of the world.

These are merely the more obvious associations, along with the fact that two hugely influential individuals (Kim and Elon) might simply be playing a kind of profitable game – when Kim shares a clip from the day of the shoot, Tesla’s share price surges by 2.1 per cent; financial press speculates that from a trading perspective this offsets a slump caused by the war in Ukraine. Small things have big effects. But before we even arrive at the subject, Kim says, ‘I think that I am a robot.’

We are talking about her foot, hurting today because ‘I think that I am a robot and that I can do everything’. She has used it too much, which is partly why I find her in repose. For someone at the centre of such chaotic speculation (when I told people I was speaking with her, I was offered a number of opinions, some of them quite extreme, as to her effect on the world across numerous areas, from geopolitics to women’s health) she seems, I suggest, inordinately calm. ‘I think the big joke of me even doing the shoot with the robot is that I feel like I’m so robotic… I’ve always been calm, and it served me well in certain situations that I could have been frantic.’ She uses her robbery at gunpoint in 2016 as an example. ‘But,’ she adds, ‘there is a level of “too calm”. I just started working with a therapist and she said, “I think you used calmness in emergency situations that served you well and kept you safe, but I feel like you have become desensitised.”’

‘I think that I am a robot and that I can do everything’

A degree of calmness might be an essential attribute for one whose actions spawn so much response. ‘Yeah, but I don’t have a feeling about what that opinion will be like. I’ll post what I want to post. I’ll do what I want to do. I live a really authentic life… I try to not talk about people and be kind and do things to not hurt people’s feelings. The stuff that I post about myself… I try not to have an opinion on it. If I like it and I do that and then whatever, you know, “universes” or “theories” or even… I mean, I’m specifically thinking of the post I posted – a photo with the Tesla robot, right?’

Yes, that’s kind of what we’re talking around here. ‘Totally. And I just thought, like, I love technology. You know, robots scare me more than the next person, but why not get used to it? It’s inevitable. Why not try to figure it out and feel some sense of calmness or safeness? I’m always a glass-half-full kind of girl. I’m like a super, super positive person. So I would just love to see what they do in our medical field and how they’ll really help in, you know, everything from cancer treatments to every possible thing that could save lives. So why not weird out and get to be close to the technology, and see what it’s about? When I think of the photos of the robots… there were so many different opinions on that, and I just… I don’t really, like, pay attention to it, I really, really don’t. Like, I wanted to post it. I thought it was so cool. I love the specific Tesla design. I think it’s incredible. There’s no one sleeker and cooler than their head designer, Franz [von Holzhausen]. I’m a design person. I love architecture and design, and I just loved the way that they looked in the car and all of it. So I don’t go in it with a specific intention of “Oh, I’m going to post this and get this kind of energy back.”’

But these aren’t just robots. Tesla and its owner are not neutral figures. There’s a perceived political affiliation which sets people thinking and worrying. ‘I didn’t even look at it as a political statement. And I think sometimes people want to draw a conclusion. I’ve been a Tesla fan since before he came into politics. I know him as a person. I know, you know, it’s just… I really wasn’t even thinking about it like that. So again, that’s people drawing conclusions, and that’s OK. I really don’t have a problem with that.’ At this point Kim’s voice drops from a kind of everyday calm to a kind of super calm – something you could deploy in hypnosis. ‘I don’t. I don’t care either way what people think or what conclusions they want to draw from that. None of that… bothers me, affects me. I know what my intention is and I don’t think it’s a bad thing either way.’

It sounds persuasive, and calming, but should we be calmed? Can one afford to be blasé at this point in a technocratic/ political revolution? Revolution breeds counter-revolution – might there be something of Marie Antoinette, a kind of ‘let them eat pixels’ aspect to this level of detachment? One can say it’s not a political statement while also accepting that it has a political ramification. ‘Totally. And I’m OK with that. If I have an intention of what I know, or what my purpose was in doing this shoot with the robots, and other conclusions are drawn from it, I don’t have a problem with that. I don’t shy away from that. I’m not naive to that. I just simply don’t live my life off thinking about whatever opinions and ideas people will draw from that, and none of that, like, affects me. To me, it’s artistic. Like, it’s a different opinion every which way – and I don’t care either way, you know? Like, respectfully. We had a fun day. It was super cool and I welcome all opinions.’

At the time this all sounds convincing. Later, when thinking about Terminator, I consider that ‘We had a fun day. It was super cool and I welcome all opinions’ is the kind of thing a robot from the future might have as a catchphrase had someone the sense to build it in Kim form, even as it pacified the last vestiges of humanity though fragrances, underwear and erotic imagery. Kim I think is real, though. Although I concede at this point I might be under her robotic sway.

‘I used to care so much,’ she says about public opinion. What changed? ‘I think when you’ve lived for over a decade with a partner – you know, my ex-partner [Kanye] – that absolutely didn’t care what people thought, I would understand that as the years go on, you know, being with someone that truly didn’t care… Like, when you see it so much, you just think, “Oh, why do I care about the silly things?”’ Fame changes people, but fame itself has changed. Kim exec-produced and appears in Rebel Superstar, a three-hour documentary on the life of Elizabeth Taylor. There is a notable moment in it when Taylor, discussing her activism and her determination to remake her own persona, says, ‘I’m going to thunder through their brains.’ Do similar thoughts occur to Kim? Her voice quietens. ‘No. I feel like I lived… I had the best childhood on the planet. I would relive that a million times over. I had the best childhood… I did learn a lot from Elizabeth Taylor. She definitely is someone I always looked up to and thought was so important for standing up for people that really couldn’t stand up for themselves.’

It’s interesting, I say, that Kim’s first response is about childhood. Elizabeth Taylor was a child star, and comes across as quite isolated in a way, especially in her youth. Whereas my impression of Kim is that she’s part of a gang, and a gang that kind of takes care of each other. ‘The best gang in the world. I think that… Well, I didn’t start to be on TV until I was 27, so I do feel like I had this whole life in high school and college and I had a full, fun life [before she was famous]. And I realised though that my kids won’t. So I think my sisters and I and our family, we’re mindful of that… And we have, like, the most grounded kids, and that makes us so proud. And I think that the reason, no matter what age we got into this business… I think the magic part is we all have each other.’

Kim is probably one of the most observed human beings in history, but that doesn’t seem to have taken a particular toll. But maybe I’m being naive? ‘No,’ she says, without hesitation. ‘I love it.’ There is another line from the Elizabeth Taylor documentary in which Kim herself says, ‘When people open themselves up to that kind of scrutiny, it’s just really hard on your soul.’ ‘On certain people’s souls,’ Kim clarifies when I quote this back to her. ‘I can handle it. Like, I love it… I’m empathetic for the people that it does affect. I’m very mindful of my children and what they see and do and the shows they watch… [But] I would be lying to say that I didn’t love my life. Listen, I love it. I can’t lie.’

There is something uncommonly positive to her, at least today. I have dealt with some upbeat well known Californians over the years, but this is next level. I think she means it.

‘I just live a different life [from when she was younger]. I know how to live a more private life, and share what we share more on our terms. So I think that the terms have changed. Because of that, it’s been a more pleasant experience. Had it been that way [of] every single move, you know, going to get your nails done and going to do this and there’s cameras in your face 24/7 – if that had continued maybe for another decade, I’m not sure I would feel the same.’

So you’ve escaped alive, in a way? ‘Yeah. But for me to say that I still like it, the dynamics have just changed. I don’t live in a place where you can step right up to the front door and there’s tonnes of paparazzi. It’s very private, and I’ve learned how to vacation private, do everything private, so that you do have that sense of normalcy. My dynamics have changed a lot. So I do feel like it was unfair to not mention that for you to not get the full picture of I think why… I don’t know if that life is sustainable for, you know, decades.’

The story here might be that if you’re lucky enough to have good early human experiences, when crises come – or global fame – you can deal with them, albeit in a slightly robotic manner, without accruing damage. ‘Absolutely,’ says Kim, with machine-like haste. There’s the legend of the lady and the robot, perhaps, and how they are entwined. Kim may have escaped alive, but where does that leave the rest of us? ‘The best childhood on the planet’ might have been one of the last such childhoods. When children have phones at an early age, they might be closer to what damaged Elizabeth Taylor than to that which sustains Kim, even as they hand her their attention. Like the lady says, ‘Brain health is very important.’ This is something we would do well to remember. Influence is a coproduction. Perhaps the brightest future is one in which we learn to look away.

Kim Kardashian for Perfect Issue 8.5.

Photographer: Steven Klein

Fashion Editor: Jahleel Weaver

Interview: Michael Holden

This interview was conducted in December 2024