If I’m being completely honest, I don’t mind that Kim Kardashian gets invited to “legitimate” events. She’ll show up to the opening of an envelope, and her red carpet style has gotten progressively worse through the years, so she’s always fun to discuss from a styling/fashion perspective. But even I – a partial Kardashian Apologist – have grown increasingly disturbed by the increased legitimization of Kim Kardashian. There was no reason for her to be included on Time Magazine’s most influential list. And there was no reason for Kim to be named one of the “Inspiration Impact” honorees at Variety’s “Power of Women: New York” event. Seriously, that happened.
The five acclaimed honorees at Variety’s upcoming “Power of Women: New York” have among them Oscars, Tonys, Emmys, Golden Globes, BAFTAs, a Grammy — and one sex tape. Eyebrows were raised when reality star Kim Kardashian was added to a lineup of “Inspiration Impact honorees” led by Glenn Close, Rachel Weisz, Lena Dunham and Whoopi Goldberg.
Some of the honorees’ reps were shocked that, after confirming their cultivated clients for the event to “recognize the extraordinary achievements and leadership of women in entertainment,” they learned their stars would share the stage with Kardashian.
“Everyone had their own version of, ‘Huh ?’ ” said one insider after Kardashian was added to the roster “at the 11th hour.” “None of the honorees knew about Kim” when they agreed to accept the award, the source said, and “every single person had a hard time with it. No one knew about Kim until very recently, and everyone thought, ‘This isn’t what I signed up for. The company we keep is important.’ ”
Another source close to one honoree explained: “People were surprised Kim was selected, considering the event is for a ‘New York power issue.’ Kim’s not a New Yorker.”
But a different source insisted that it was only one star’s representative who had any issue with Kardashian’s involvement, and that their client had no problem with the choice. And Goldberg’s rep told us, “Whoopi has no issues with Kim being involved with the event.” But despite any behind-the-scenes drama, a source pointed out all the stars will be in attendance, and “at the end of the day all their charities are getting money — they’re showing up for a good cause.” A Variety rep didn’t comment.
Whoopi Goldberg was the one complaining about Kim initially? Out of that group, I would have said… Rachel Weisz or Glenn Close, not because Glenn and Rachel are known for being mean (they are not) but because their star power would be the most diminished by being grouped with Kim Kardashian. I’m sort of surprised Variety is holding fast to their position too – I wonder if there was some money changing hands? Like, “I’ll donate this amount of money to this cause if you give me an award”?
Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.
I dont think its so much money changing hands as people know if you put Kim or Kanye on a cover or invite them to an event, it will get more press. Should Kanye have been on the cover of Time? Hell no. Should Kim have been in the magazine at all? Hell.No. But they know including them = more press. I imagine thats the beginning and end of it.
SHAME ON YOU VARIETY MAGAZINE. How dare you give Kim Kartrashian an award for inspiration. If you think a sex tape is inspiring than you people are really stupid.
In that last picture, it looks like it would be painful to make any type of facial movement. She looks so swollen.
That’s an…interesting list. Not just because of Kim.
My thoughts exactly, especially given Whoopi’s rape comments and Lena admitting to emotionally manipulating her sister much less masturbating in the bed next to her 😯
Of all the women to choose….
She certainly inspires me to look for alternative variety, so there’s that.
I actually respect Kim’s hustle. She deserved the TIME mention. She’s the most followed person on Instagram and one of the top followed ppl on Twitter. Having a combined ~60million-ish followers is no joke. She truly has influence (good or bad). She revolutionized the makeup game in terms of highlight/contour. It wasn’t a makeup trend and those products weren’t produced in such high qualities until she came around. Does her style suck? Yea. But again, 60 million people are trying to copy her. I think her and Kris are very calculated in their business moves and while people don’t like that, it does bring in millions for her brand.
If nothing else, I give her props for holding her head up high. If you follow her on insta, you will see that for literally every 100 negative comments “slut” “whore” there will be one nice comment. This girl is bashed for everything and she still keeps chugging along. The amount of bullying/negativity she endures on social media is crazy. I would’ve shut down my accounts.
Kim didn’t revolutionize contouring. Hell Rupaul and others that do drag have been doing the same thing for decades ,only they do it better.
@fingerbinger sure Rupaul does it . And contouring and highlighting was invented by Drag Queens but unfortunately few people are crediting him or that industry. “Kim K Makeup tutorials” are everywhere on YouTube. People copy her makeup. She’s the one that brought attention to it.
Kim ‘revolutionized’ contouring the same way Kylie Jenner ‘revolutionized’ big lips. Which is to say these girls took already established styles from specific cultures and got praise for them from industries that refuse to give respect to others.
WORD.
And you
Forgot the video game success. And the clothing lines that sell worldwide. They sell folks. I admire the hustle too.
Let’s say that make-up contouring in photographs is an aesthetic revolution. Then you want to go back to Gloria Swanson, Mary Pickford, Cobert and Harlow and thank Max Factor, circa 1914 for that. A technique that has been executed invisibly by classy stars since. It’s not supposed to attract “attention.”
Kim isn’t even a footnote in that company. In fact she’s a poster girl for an uneducated narcissism.
Re: your make up comment…..clearly you’ve never heard of Kevin Aucoin if you think Kim revolutionised the concept of contouring. You should look him up. His hey day was the 90s. Sadly he is no longer with us. His make up books and techniques continue to sell out. Many make up artists use his techniques. Kim’s make up tips are straight from his books. Complete with step-by-step guides and photos to achieve the look.
Better still look at 90s Janet Jackson and Ru Paul to see the power of contouring as done by Kevin Aucoin.
LAK I am so pleased to see you mention Aucoin. He was a tremendous inspiration to me and such a talented artist. I really hate that he died so young. His books are ones I still refer to today!!
Nice of you to mention the artist but you’ve got to give it to Kim that she popularized this method.
Gotta agree. I’ve never watched an episode of any of her shows, and her style is certainly not for me. Heck, I really don’t pay that much attention to her….but she is lambasted daily — and keeps on keeping on. That takes an iron will. Gotta have some respect for that.
I’d guess a good quarter to a third of that 60 million are bought or fake accounts. Still a lot of mindless followers though.
Yes, she makes so much money tweeting disguised ads for products that it would definitely be worth buying blocks of fake followers. The numbers decide how much she gets per month for peddling the products. Any numbers of followers today have to be taken with a huge bucket of salt for that reason, anybody can fake it if large enough profit is involved.
As for the video game- she licensed the use of her image in a update of an already existing and successful game. She did not design the game. She just let them plug in her face and some relevant backgrounds. It’s one of those games which is supposedly free to play but the developers count on expensive in-app purchases by people too impatient to wait for things to regenerate or build up without paying. Much like the Kardashian Pre-Paid Kredit Kard featuring their picture on the card, this is aimed primarily at young people who don’t realize how bad the terms are, since they are especially likely to be impatient enough to keep funneling real money into the app.
🙂 Thanks for saying this! I admire her hustle too.
She doesn’t keep “chugging along” because she’s such a strong, confident woman – she is absolutely neither of those qualities. She chugs along because she loves MONEY and useless FAME and nothing will stop her from getting both. She doesn’t care how much she has to demean herself, it all comes down to love of MONEY, not love of self and that is seriously nothing to admire.
I think Kim gets these honors because they want Kanye to show up.
Piss and sex is an inspiration?
Changing your face till you look like a photoshopped version of yourself is inspirational? Vapidness and asses full of lies are inspirational?
Break out the umbrellas to protect yourself from the locusts raining down out of the sky, because the end is most certainly near….
I agree 100% this is a joke!
Who and what does she inspire? All she does is take her clothes off any chance she gets. There are going to be new nude pics of Kim coming out next week from her selfie book. That’s all she’s good for.
Seriously, what inspiration? Raking in The Almighty Dollar – at any cost and by any means. Yeas, that’s inspirational. What a world.
Kim and Whoppie? Prestigious.
Would anyone even talk about the award if Kim wasn’t involved? Kim and Kanye are how you get people talking
+1
Maybe Variety is onto something with this inspiration award,
After all, Kim Kardashian does *inspire* me to raise my daughters to not be Kim Kardashian.
I imagine the earful they’ll get from those star’s reps and the decreased turn-out from future events will be the slow downfall of what once was a special event.
Let’s be honest. No one wants to have their achievements put on the same level as her. whatever your feeling about these ladies they all are working continuously to achieve something and are making advancements while she’s still pouting in her fake reality show episodes and constantly referencing her sex tape.
I’m not shocked different companies will use her for publicity. That’s pretty much her only job or achievement, but I do enjoy how surprised those companies are when their reputations take a nosedive. Getting a VOGUE cover became absolutely meaningless once she got on it. Time’s list became a running joke in many circles and now this? Variety will be begging to give these awards away in the future.
Also I don’t know how recent the picture from the icon is but ouch…her face is just getting tighter and more cat-like everyday.
Atrocious. I can’t wait for her “star” to dim.
I dunno, we’ve been waiting YEARS and it hasn’t dimmed yet. Unlike her brain, of course.
Love it or hate it, she is probably the most famous woman in the world right now.
She is famous in the sense that her name has high recognition. But she also is more or less disliked for a variety of reasons. So the recognition is primarily negative. She has her fans, but she also hits many people the wrong way – and that reaction seems to be increasing. She is not original but rather tries to copy others, and she seems so dead emotionally and intellectually. She really is an odd choice to include among that group, and likewise for the Time list.
I think earlier she was considered as a benign person, but the K shows have given people too close a view of her. She comes across as a chronic liar and just not very nice on those shows, more so than the others. Her public behavior with her daughter is downright disturbing. Her wedding extravaganza and greedy exhorbitant bridal registry, followed by dumping her second husband after 72 days and then not returning the wedding gifts was perceived especially negatively. These are things people know about in real life (marriage, mothers and babies) and they have a basis for judging. Kim seems baffled by the negative responses and her way of handling it is to keep switching her stories, trying to find one that will elicit a more positive response. She did this after filing for divorce from husband #2 and she is also doing it with stories about her daughter (and related issues, such as claiming to really want more children).
For a positive reason or negative reason, fame is fame. She is part of todays pop cultures most famous family. We all watched this gorgeous girl ruin her looks, have bad relationships, dress badly, not be the best mother, and see everything that happens in the family because we are curious. We watch and read everything about her and won’t stop. Her life is entertaining to watch. Doesn’t look like she’s losing her fame anytime soon
Thomas- well, Hitler was famous, too. I wouldn’t expect him to get an Inspiration award! Not comparing Kim to Adolf, but what does she really do? None of it falls within the inspirational category. Her mother is the business mastermind, Kim is just a puppet. Kim is pathologically self-absorbed, not very bright (I suspect she is in the dull normal range), looks happiest when photographed naked by magazines, can’t bond with her baby, lies repeatedly and can’t keep the stories straight or make them believable, and acts bored whenever she is not the center of attention. She is a sad case and not aging well. She just doesn’t do any really original work and she is quite passive. The other women on the list seem dynamic and original, with real thoughts in their heads regardless of whether or not you agree with them. Kim just seems so out of place, and she might actually realize it to some extent
Time magazine is down to fewer than 20 pages an issue now…a dying publication if ever there was one. They’d put child molesters on the list if they thought it would sell one more issue. And Variety isn’t far behind.
And I picked up a copy of Rolling Stone the other day in my doc’s office and it’s literally like a pamphlet now – 78 pages. 10, 15 years ago every issue was two hundred pages.
The media needs to stop kissing her ass. She would never be recognized for any award before Kanye came along. Damn how many connections does the dude have?
All this tells young girls is that it pays to make a disgusting sex tape
End of story
+1 to the infinite power
And how is Kim inspirational? By her hustle? Her make up tutorials? Jesus.
I will let the young girls know that grifting, selling your body to the masses, forgoing further education, lying,lying ,lying, clandestinely allowing your underage sibling to hump on a predator, making up a church for tax exemptions, charitable works…whats that?, is the way to go!
Why bother be an exceptional human being!
Just record being pissed on, and have your mom pimp it out! Its all cake from there!
I personally avoid all Kim and Kayne articles or even tv shows discussing them (Extra, ET, any morning talk show, etc.) I do click on articles, ONLY to read the comments. That probably helps their cause but I enjoy the snark. She is not influential nor interesting to me in the slightest. I think she does much more harm than good, starting with her “fashion style” influenced strictly by her husband and copied by her little sister. She is just a blow-up, empty puppet who has made a boatload of money thanks mainly to her mother.
I cannot wait for them to disappear into oblivion. I would like to see what freak of nature Kim will transform herself into within 10 years. The work she has had has aged her tremendously.
Great comments from everyone. She and the rest of her Klan are never going away, are they? Ugh.
How ridiculous is that?
She is a mirror to society and she relects our ills.
People look to fill their empty lives with hers!
Yep, she inspired a whole generation to be vapid like her.
I’m confused about the last part. Isn’t it well known the Kardashians don’t donate? Ever. Even when they said they would. That’s why Kris started the sham church so if could get “donations.”
It would be awesome if one (or all) decided not to show up & said up front that is was due to her being one of the honorees.
The fact that many people follow someone as shallow as Kim or Kanye just reaffirms the reasons why this country is in serious trouble! People pay no attention to somebody that is doing things to try and make the world a better place but my gosh they all watch KUWK and watch what an empty, soulless, dumbed down plastic woman wears.
‘Can’t wait to hear what CDAN’s take on this arrangement is.