Politics
Kanye West was a millionaire rap icon but he couldn’t keep up with Kim Kardashian
I KNEW the moment Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s marriage was over.
It was July 22 last year, during a bout of particularly erratic tweets by Kanye, where he accused his wife of cheating and claimed he wanted a divorce, that he made the gravest marital mistake of all.
Like many other halves before him, Kanye, 43, simply couldn’t keep up with a Kardashian[/caption]
He compared his mother-in-law, Kris Jenner, to North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-Un.
When I read “Kris Jong-Un” on his midnight Twitter ramblings I made a noise similar to when watching a skateboard stunt go very badly wrong. During that sharp intake of breath through my teeth, I thought: “He’s done it now.”
Because, let’s face it. Behind every great woman is another great woman. And the powerhouse that is momager Kris Jenner cannot be beaten.
Every single one of her five female offspring — Kourtney, 41, Kim, 40, Khloe, 36, Kendall, 25, and Kylie, 23 — is a multimillionaire. And she never lets pesky boyfriends and/or husbands get in the way of their success. Or her ten per cent.
Like many other halves before him, Kanye, 43, simply couldn’t keep up with a Kardashian.
He is joining the ranks of Scott Disick, 37 (multiple stays in rehab) who dated Kourtney on and off from 2006 to 2015; Lamar Odom, 41 (near-death drug and prostitute binge) who was married to Khloe for seven years; and Kris’s ex-husband Caitlyn Jenner (sex change).
Kanye made the gravest marital mistake of all in July 22 last year, when he accused Kim, 40, of cheating and claimed he wanted a divorce[/caption]
As Kris Jenner’s daughters are all multimillionaires, she never lets pesky boyfriends and/or husbands get in the way of their success[/caption]
So it was no surprise to hear Kimye, as fans dubbed the couple, will be no more, with Kim reportedly filing for divorce four days ago.
And while the pair have a rock-solid pre-nup to secure each of their extortionate individual fortunes, Kanye certainly comes out of this marriage losing a lot more than money.
Because, quite simply, Kanye has lost his cool.
And, like some sort of powerful Disney Queen in a gothic castle, Kim has sucked every last drop of cool out of him and is exiting this marriage rejuvenated and ready to rule the world.
Let’s examine the evidence.
Before the couple became an item, Kim was known as a sex tape-making, selfie-obsessed, multiple-married, vacuous reality star who fought with her equally silly sisters and posed for Playboy.
It was no surprise to hear Kimye will be no more, with Kim reportedly filing for divorce four days ago[/caption]
But multimillionaire rap icon Kanye certainly comes out of this marriage losing a lot more than money, as he has lost his cool[/caption]
Tacky road of no return
Kanye was deemed one of hip-hop’s most innovative artists. His 2004 debut album, The College Dropout, had enormous success both commercially and critically.
With 21 Grammy awards under his belt, he was a producer for Roc-A-Fella Records and created hits for Janet Jackson, Alicia Keys and the label’s co-founder, Jay-Z. Kim was definitely punching above her weight in the battle of cool.
Especially as when they began dating, she was freshly separated from her second husband of 72 days, NBA basketball star Kris Humphries, 36. Their very public nuptials in August 2011 had been watched by 10.5 million viewers on the long-running reality show, Keeping Up With The Kardashians.
Soon after Kim and Kanye started dating in 2012, Kim was pregnant with their first child. In a union that was clearly taking Kanye down a tacky road of no return, they called the tot — a daughter who is now seven — North. North West.
Then to seal the deal, Kanye put a £3.5million diamond ring on it and Kim became Kardashian-West in a lavish £10.8million ceremony at a castle overlooking the Italian city of Florence in May 2014.
Over their seven years of marriage, which led to three more children — daughter Chicago, three, and sons Saint, five, and Psalm, one — the cross-contamination of crass and cool played out. Kim transformed herself from what many thought of as an attention-seeking dimwit into one of the world’s most powerful businesswomen.
Kanye got a £3.5million diamond ring for Kim to seal the deal and she became Kardashian-West in a £10.8million wedding ceremony in May 2014[/caption]
Over their seven years of marriage and three more children, Kim took over Kanye’s cool attitude and became one of the world’s most powerful businesswomen[/caption]
Gone are the garish outfits — replaced with muted colours and underwear made by her £200million company, Skims. She is also following in the footsteps of her late father, Robert Kardashian, and training to be a lawyer.
Meanwhile, after years of collaboration, Kanye fell out with Jay-Z, saying he had failed to support him in his “hour of need” when Kim was robbed at gunpoint of £9million of jewellery in Paris in October 2016.
That November he launched into a 17-minute speech at the Saint Pablo Tour concert in California that went from praising Donald Trump to asking Jay-Z not to have him assassinated. Much of Kanye’s erratic behaviour is down to his Bipolar disorder, a mental illness that causes mania.
Kim blamed his illness for his distressing comments last July at a rally in North Carolina in which he suggested they considered aborting North.
Taking to the stage at his first rally in his bid to become US President, Kanye was visibly upset as he said, “I almost killed my daughter . . . even if my wife were to divorce me after this speech, she brought North into the world, even when I didn’t want to,” and suggested that “everybody that has a baby gets a million dollars”.
Kanye was blowing a reported £5million to run for President yet won just 60,000 votes out of an estimated 160million. Kim, meanwhile, had meetings with President Trump and managed to help free three people from jail in her fight for prison reform.
While Kim was training to be a lawyer and had meetings with Donal Trump, Kanye’s erratic comments saw him blow £5million to run for President[/caption]
Cruelly cut out
Then came a remarkably lame moment.
At Kim’s 40th birthday party in October, Kanye’s present to her was a hologram of her late father, Robert, programmed to say, among other things: “You married the most, most, most, most, most genius man in the whole world, Kanye West.”
For us fans, there were always clues — or klues — that Kimye was not built to last.
As a devotee of all 20 series of KUWTK I have watched endless hours of the reality show. Between the often scripted and toe-curling set-up scenes there are some very real moments indeed.
One of them is at the world-famous 2019 Met Gala. While squeezing into a gold corset dress, Kim reveals that when she first attended the ball in 2013 she was Kanye’s plus-one and was cruelly cut out of the red carpet photos when posing next to him.
She said: “Kanye was performing, so I wasn’t actually invited, I was just Kanye’s plus-one. And that was OK with me because I never really dreamed I would be at the Met Ball.
While many clues appeared on KUWTK, the world-famous is the 2019 Met Gala where Kim squeezed into a gold corset dress[/caption]
Kim told that she was cut out of the red carpet photos when posing next to Kanye during her first ball in 2013, as she was his plus one[/caption]
She said ‘I know no one really probably wanted me there at the time . . . I went home and cried’[/caption]
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“I know no one really probably wanted me there at the time . . . I went home and cried.”
In a moment of reflection, she gazes at her almost cartoon-like curves in the mirror, sewn into the silicone designer Mugler dress. Her eyes glint as she thinks who the star of the red carpet will be this year.
Patting her tiny waist, she says: “Kanye can come in and take some (shots) with me, but I definitely want solo.” Of course you do, Kim. Of course you do.
LAWYER WHO ALWAYS GOES FOR THE KASH
Grant Rollings
IN the Scarlett Johansson movie Marriage Story, Nora Fanshaw is the no-nonsense divorce lawyer who makes sure what her clients want, her clients get.
So Kanye better watch out – because Nora is believed to be based on Kim Kardashian’s legal representative, Laura Wasser.
Laura is the go-to divorce lawyer in showbusiness, with her previous clients including Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ex-wife Maria Shriver, Angelina Jolie, Britney Spears, Ryan Reynolds, Melanie Griffith, Stevie Wonder, Mariah Carey and Miley Cyrus.
She also stood in Kim’s corner when the reality TV star split from her previous husband, Kris Humphries, in 2011. The 52-year-old is appreciated for her discretion, never talking about clients publicly and making sure unpleasant details don’t end up in documents that can later be accessed by the media.
Laura thinks marriages don’t tend to last in Hollywood because couples in those industries have very high expectations. She says: “In the entertainment industry we see a lot of people that bought the dream, wanted the beautiful wedding and the romance. Then, when the bloom is off the rose, it’s not as exciting any more, you don’t get the same butterflies, you’re ready to move on.”
Kim and Kanye certainly fit that pattern. Laura favours pre-nuptial agreements and most likely drew up one for Kim before she tied the knot with the rapper. But she reveals that some clients have unreasonable demands in the prenups, with one wife-to-be asking if her husband leaving the loo seat up could be inserted as grounds for a payment-free divorce.
The lawyer, though, insists she doesn’t prey on troubled couples. Divorcee Laura, who has two children by two different fathers, advises them to talk it through first, telling clients ‘this woman or man’s s* is just the same as the next one, so let’s see if we can work through it’. Laura, who charges £690 an hour for her time, also believes that going to court should be the last resort and prefers an amicable resolution. However, there are times when she can see a marriage is over. She says: “Sometimes you walk in and your husband is getting b*n by the nanny. So that’s kind of a good sign (that it’s over).”
Surprisingly, she doesn’t seem to be too concerned about the alleged portrayal in Marriage Story. The film was written and directed by Noah Baumbach, who faced Laura when he split from ex Jennifer Jason Leigh in 2013.
In the Netflix movie Adam Driver’s character Charlie describes Nora as an “asshole” for her aggressive tactics. Yet Laura describes Laura Dern’s portrayal of the feisty divorce lawyer as “satirical and lovely”.
In another twist Dern, who won a best supporting actress Oscar for the role, also employed Laura’s services. Laura was born into the profession, with her lawyer dad Dennis representing celebrity clients including The Beatles, Tom Cruise and Rod Stewart. And he gave her the middle name Allison so her initials would spell out LAW.
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