STAR WITNESS

NEARLY A DECADE AFTER KIM KARDASHIAN WAS ROBBED AT GUNPOINT, HER EMOTIONAL TESTIMONY IN A PARIS COURTROOM HELPED CONVICT HER ATTACKERS

- By HUGO WINTREBERT

KIM KARDASHIAN HAD only one desire: to flee as quickly as she could. “I want to leave and be reunited with my children in the United States,” she said. “A private plane is waiting for me at Le Bourget.” It wasn’t that simple. Investigators from the Paris police’s organized crime department still had a few questions to ask her. It was 4:30 a.m. on October 3, 2016, and they were at her hotel to take her statement. The 35-year-old American star appeared distraught—“in shock, very pale, and she wasn’t wearing any makeup,” they noted. An hour and a half earlier, two men, one of them armed, burst into her suite at the Hôtel de Pourtalès, a stone’s throw from the Madeleine church in the heart of the city. At first she believed she was dealing with “terrorists,” as she put it. “I thought they were going to shoot me. When I realized that the gun was real, I decided to do whatever they asked.” Kardashian told investigators the men demanded her jewelry, then bound her and duct-taped her mouth before carrying her into the bathroom. Her nightmare lasted about 10 minutes. “I had an indescribable feeling, like my heart was coming out of my chest,” she said. “I knew I was going to die.”

She also explained to the police that she wasn't able to see much of her assailants, who were masked. One must have been close to five foot eleven, and the other was between five seven and five nine. The investigators seized a number of items that the thieves might have touched for DNA testing. They took samples from Kardashian's wrists, ankles, and hair. At 7:40 a.m., she was allowed to depart on her private jet. Soon, the global media would arrive at the hotel.