Billionaire entrepreneur and actuality tv star Kim Kardashian testified in a packed Paris courthouse on Tuesday within the trial of the suspects accused of robbing her at gunpoint, taping her mouth, binding her fingers and stealing tens of millions of {dollars}’ value of jewellery 9 years in the past.
Kardashian, 44, advised the jury she thought she was going to be sexually assaulted throughout the 2016 heist and that she was positive she wouldn’t survive the ordeal.
“I used to be sure that was the second that he was going to rape me,” she advised a Paris courtroom Tuesday. “I completely did assume I used to be going to die.”
Kim Kardashian arrives on the Palais de Justice on Could 13, 2025, in Paris, France.
Edward Berthelot / Getty Photographs
Kim Kardashian recollects the incident
Kardashian, who was tearful at instances, stated she was preparing for mattress when she heard loud footsteps ascending the steps to her resort room, telling the courtroom that in the first place she thought it was her sister Kourtney and a good friend coming back from a Paris Style Week occasion within the early hours of Oct. 3.
She recalled calling out to ask who was there earlier than masked males entered the room.
“I clearly was very confused. I needed to make sense of what was taking place. I used to be nearly to go to sleep, bare with a gown on,” she advised the courtroom.
“Truthfully, lots of terrorist assaults have been taking place on the planet, and I assumed it was some type of terrorist assault, and I didn’t instantly perceive it was for my jewellery.”
She stated the suspects arrived at her resort dressed as cops and held the concierge hostage. He was dragged into her room, handcuffed, based on Kardashian.
One attacker started gesturing at her diamond ring.
“He stated, ‘Ring! Ring!’ and he pointed to his hand,” she recalled.
Kardashian grabbed her cellphone to name the police, however didn’t know the French emergency quantity. She then tried to contact her sister and bodyguard, however was stopped by one of many masked assailants.
Kim Kardashian arrives on the Palais de Justice on Could 13, 2025, in Paris, France.
Edward Berthelot / Getty Photographs
The boys then threw her on the mattress, zip-tied her fingers and held a gun to her head, she testified.
“I’ve infants,” Kardashian stated. “I’ve to make it house. They’ll take the whole lot. I simply should make it house.”
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At that second, Kardashian stated she remembers worrying about what her sister Kourtney may need come house to.
“I thought of my sister, thought she would stroll in and see me shot useless and have that reminiscence in her eternally,” Kardashian stated.
The boys then dragged her to the lavatory, she stated, the place they taped her mouth and advised her she wouldn’t be harmed so long as she didn’t make any noise.
She recalled being dealt with aggressively by the suspects, however stated they didn’t hit her.
“I used to be not hit. No, I used to be grabbed, and dragged into the opposite room, and thrown onto the ground, however wasn’t hit, no,” she advised the courtroom.
“[The gun] was pointed in direction of me to get me to go from room to room, and it was pointed towards me on the mattress on the finish.”
The final time Kardashian noticed the boys who police say robbed her, she was locked within the toilet whereas the suspects stole greater than US$6 million in jewellery.
Her testimony marked a long-awaited second in a trial that has captivated France and the broader world for nearly a decade, and reignited discussions concerning the value of fame in addition to the dangers of dwelling within the public eye.
Kardashian is likely one of the most recognizable figures on the planet, a billionaire vogue and sweetness model entrepreneur, a actuality tv icon, a producer and a lawyer within the making, with a following of greater than 350 million on Instagram alone.
However the theft make clear the darkish sides of extreme publicity, and the way fame can go away high-profile figures susceptible to assaults just like the one she survived.
Police consider the suspects watched Kardashian’s social media profiles to construct a broader image of her actions and used pictures she’d shared with time stamps and geotags to trace her whereabouts within the lead-up to the incident.
Kardashian was joined by her mom, Kris Jenner, within the closely guarded Parisian courtroom. Wearing black with $1.5 million value of diamonds draped round her neck — based on a press launch her staff despatched to journalists on the trial, experiences The Related Press — her voice quivered as she thanked the French authorities for permitting her to “converse my fact.”
This courtroom sketch made on Could 13, 2025, in Paris reveals U.S. superstar Kim Kardashian (R2), subsequent to co-accused Aomar Ait Khedache (R), testifying earlier than the Assize Courtroom for the trial over the 2016 theft that noticed her robbed of tens of millions of {dollars}’ value of jewellery at gunpoint.
BENOIT PEYRUCQ / Getty Photographs
The accused and the aftermath
French prosecutors say the 12 suspects, who’re between the ages of 60 and 70, have been members of an old-school felony ring.
Two assailants have admitted to being on the scene of the crime, and one claims he didn’t know who Kardashian was when the crime passed off; one other died earlier than the trial, and a fourth was excused because of sickness.
The group of criminals was dubbed “les papys braqueurs” — “the grandpa robbers” — by the French press, however Kardashian’s attorneys insist the boys are removed from a healthful gaggle of senior residents.
The suspects are going through fees of armed theft, kidnapping and membership in a felony gang, crimes in France that carry the opportunity of life in jail.
After the boys left the scene, Kardashian stated she rubbed the tape binding her wrists towards the lavatory sink to free her fingers.
Her ankles nonetheless tied, she hopped downstairs to seek out her good friend and stylist, Simone Harouche, who was staying within the room under.
Fearing the robbers might come again, Harouche and Kardashian fled to the balcony and hid within the bushes. Whereas there, Kardashian phoned her mom.
Earlier within the trial, Harouche recalled listening to Kardashian scream from upstairs: “‘I have to reside.’ That’s what she saved on saying, ‘Take the whole lot. I have to reside’.”
In the meantime, Harouche locked herself in a rest room and texted Kardashian’s sister and bodyguard, writing, “One thing could be very flawed.”
Later, she heard Kardashian struggling down the steps, her ankles nonetheless certain.
“She was beside herself,” Harouche stated. “She simply was screaming.”
Decide David De Pas requested Harouche whether or not she thought Kardashian invited the robbers by sharing pictures of herself on the web adorned in costly jewels — a line of questioning Harouche strongly rejected.
Kim Kardashian leaves the courthouse after testifying earlier than the Assize Courtroom for the trial over the 2016 theft that noticed her relieved of tens of millions of {dollars} value of jewellery at gunpoint in Paris, on Could 13, 2025.
Alain JOCARD / Getty Photographs
“Simply because a lady wears jewellery, that doesn’t make her a goal,” she stated. “That’s like saying that as a result of a lady wears a brief skirt that she deserves to be raped.”
Kardashian advised the courtroom that shortly after the Paris theft, her Los Angeles house was damaged into in what she believes was a copycat assault, including that she will be able to now not sleep with out guards and has between 4 and 6 at house at any given time.
“I began to get this phobia of going out,” Kardashian stated. “This expertise actually modified the whole lot for us.”
On the time of the Paris theft, her bodyguard was staying in a unique resort.
“We assumed that if we have been in a resort, it was protected, it was safe,” Kardashian defined, including that Paris, up till then, had at all times felt protected to her and that she would typically stroll the streets alone within the early hours of the morning to window store or cease for a solo sizzling chocolate.
“It at all times felt actually protected,” she stated. “It was at all times a magical place.”
Kardashian obtained an apology letter from one of many suspects, and stated she was grateful for the gesture.
“I do respect the letter, for positive. I forgive you for what has taken place, nevertheless it doesn’t change the emotions and the trauma and the truth that my life was eternally modified, however I do respect the letter, thanks,” she concluded.
— With recordsdata from The Related Press and Reuters
