Kim Kardashian was in Paris on Tuesday, testifying about the 2016 Paris robbery jewelry heist that changed her life. She told the court that she said a silent prayer for her sister, her best friend, her family, as a masked man pulled her toward him. The intruders, she says, zip-tied her hands and taped her mouth while she wore a bathrobe. She says she thought she wouldn’t survive.
“I was certain that was the moment that he was going to rape me,” she told a Paris court Tuesday. “I absolutely did think I was going to die.”
Ahead of her emotional testimony, Kim Kardashian walked into the courthouse with her mother, Kris Jenner, in tow. She was dressed in a black suit, with diamond bling on her neck, ears, and hands. According to the Associated Press, her necklace alone, from Samer Halimeh in New York, is worth $1.5 million.
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Kim Kardashian Recalls Night Of The Jewelry Heist
The SKIMS founder testified she was getting ready for bed when she heard stomping on the stairs. At first, she thought it was her sister Kourtney Kardashian and a friend returning drunk from a night out at Paris Fashion Week. She said masked men stormed her room after she called out, “Hello? Hello? Who is it?” She described how the attackers arrived at her hotel disguised as police officers. They had dragged the concierge upstairs in handcuffs. “I thought it was some sort of terrorist attack,” she said. One attacker demanded she turn over her diamond ring valued at $4 million on the bedside table. “He said, ‘Ring! Ring!’ and he pointed to his hand,” Kardashian recalled.
Kim grabbed her phone amid the break-in but didn’t know the French emergency number. When she tried to call her sister and bodyguard, one masked man stopped her. Afterward, the men threw her on the bed, zip-tied her hands, and pressed a gun to her. At that point, Kim seemingly begged for her life.
“I have babies,” Kardashian said on the stand. “I have to make it home. They can take everything. I just have to make it home.”
Instead of letting her go, the masked men carried her into the bathroom. One man taped her mouth, and someone told her she’d be OK if she stayed quiet. They locked her in the marble bathroom while they stole more than $6 million in jewelry, per police. That was the last time she saw the masked men, aside from sitting in the witness box nearly 10 years later.
How Did She Escape?
After the men fled her hotel room, Kim Kardashian rubbed the tape against the bathroom sink to free her hands. She hopped downstairs, still bound, to find her friend and stylist, Simone Harouche. She and Simone later went onto the balcony and hid in the bushes, fearing that the robbers might return. While lying there, Kardashian called her mother, Kris Jenner.
In a trembling voice, AP reports that she thanked the French police for allowing her “to share [her] truth.”
“This is my closure,” Kardashian testified. “This is me putting this, hopefully, to rest.”
Friend Says Kim Was “Beside Herself” During Robbery
Simone Harouche also testified in the trial, and recalled Kim screaming from upstairs: “‘I need to live.’ That is what she kept on saying, ‘Take everything. I need to live.’” Harouche locked herself in a bathroom and texted Kardashian’s sister and bodyguard: “Something is very wrong.” She described how her friend was “beside herself … she just was screaming.”
Kim Kardashian Shares Phobia She Developed After Robbery
Kimmy told the court her house in Los Angeles was robbed shortly after the Paris robbery in what appeared to be a copycat attack. Without security guards, she said, “I can’t even sleep at night.” She now keeps between four and six guards at home.
“I started to get this phobia of going out,” Kim Kardashian said. “This experience really changed everything for us.”
At the time of the 2016 robbery, she said, her bodyguard was staying in a separate hotel: “We assumed that if we were in a hotel, it was safe, it was secure.” She said Paris had once been a sanctuary, a place where she would walk at 3 or 4 a.m., window shopping, sometimes stopping for hot chocolate. It “always felt really safe,” she said. “It was always a magical place.”
Who Committed The Robbery?
French prosecutors say the assailants — most in their 60s and 70s — were part of a seasoned criminal ring. Two defendants have admitted being at the scene. One claims he didn’t know who she was.
Twelve suspects were originally charged. One has since died. Another was excused due to illness. The French press dubbed them les papys braqueurs — “the grandpa robbers” — but prosecutors insist they were no harmless retirees.
They face charges including armed robbery, kidnapping, and membership in a criminal gang, offenses that carry the potential for life imprisonment. If convicted, they could face life in prison. The trial is expected to conclude on May 23.
Robbers Used Digital Breadcrumbs To Find Kim
At the time of the robbery, Kardashian was one of the most recognized women. She had mastered a new kind of celebrity — one broadcast in real time, post by post, to millions of followers. However, in the early hours of Oct. 3, 2016, that visibility became a weapon against her. Investigators believe the attackers followed Kardashian’s digital breadcrumbs — images, timestamps, geotags — and abused them with old-school criminal methods.
Judge David de Pas asked whether Kardashian had made herself a target by posting images of herself with “jewels of great value.” Her friend, Simone Harouche, rejected the premise.
“Just because a woman wears jewelry, that doesn’t make her a target,” Simone shot back. “That’s like saying that because a woman wears a short skirt that she deserves to be raped.”
Associated Press staff Thomas Adamson, John Leicester, and Nicolas Vaux-Montagny contributed to this report.
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