As a masked man pulled Kim Kardashian toward him in a Paris hotel room in 2016, she said a silent prayer.
She was wearing only a bathrobe. Her hands were zip-tied and her mouth was taped.
“I was certain that was the moment that he was going to rape me,” she told a court in Paris on Tuesday. “I absolutely did think I was going to die.”
The TV and social media star gave evidence for the first time in the trial of a gang of so-called ‘grandpa robbers’, accused of tying her up at gunpoint in her hotel suite and stealing $10 million in jewellery.
When she first heard footsteps thundering up the stairs that night, Ms Kardashian said she thought it was her sister Kourtney and a friend returning from a night out. “Hello? Hello? Who is it?” she called. Moments later, her door flew open.
She begged the robbers: “I have babies,” she said. One replied that she would be all right if she stayed quiet.
The last time Ms Kardashian saw the men that police say robbed her, she was bound at gunpoint and locked in a marble bathroom while masked assailants stole millions in jewellery. On Tuesday, nearly a decade later, she faced the accused group from the witness stand.
Dressed in black, Ms Kardashian stood across from her mother, Kris Jenner, in the heavily secured courtroom. Her voice trembled as she thanked French authorities for “allowing me to share my truth”.
She described how the attackers arrived at her hotel disguised as police officers, dragging the concierge upstairs in handcuffs. “I thought it was some sort of terrorist attack,” she said.
They tied her hands, dragged her toward the bathtub and pointed a gun at her temple. One gestured at her diamond ring. “He said, ‘Ring! Ring!’ and he pointed to his hand,” she recalled.
She feared her sister Kourtney, who was out at the time with the family’s security guard, would later find her dead on the bed and “have that memory in her forever”.
Explaining how she eventually freed herself, Ms Kardashian said: "After a few minutes, I didn't hear anything, so I (moved over) to the sink, and it was a marble sink so I cut my ties.
"When I got downstairs, Simone (her stylist) let me know that she had called my sister Kourtney, and her and the security were on the way. We weren't sure at that point if they were going to come back. So we ran on the balcony to hide in the bushes."
"I remember calling my mom from the bushes to let her know what happened,” she continued. “And then I think while we were waiting for my security, we were trying to come up with a plan, if we should jump from the window, as it was just a one-storey building."
Ms Kardashian explained the lasting impact the ordeal had had on her life.
"Now I have between four and six security (personnel) at home for me to feel safe,” she told the trial. “I think there are people who hear these stories and then they want to copycat. My house in Los Angeles was robbed just after what happened in Paris. I can't sleep at night if there aren't multiple security people."
Ms Kardashian broke down in tears as she gave evidence.
French prosecutors say the assailants, most in their 60s and 70s, were part of a seasoned criminal ring that tracked Ms Kardashian’s movements through her Instagram posts.
Two of the defendants have admitted being at the scene. One claims he did not know who she was.
In one powerful moment, Kardashian said she forgave one of those who admitted involvement in the crime. Addressing Aomar Aït Khedache directly, she said: “I forgive you.”
It came shortly after the judge read out a letter from Khedache written after his arrest in 2017, in which he apologised for the “pain” he caused Kardashian. The celebrity had not been aware of the letter until it was read out in court, and was tearful when she heard its contents.
Twelve suspects were originally charged. One has since died. Another was excused due to illness. The French press dubbed the group les papys braqueurs (“the grandpa robbers”), but prosecutors insist they were no harmless retirees.
Ms Kardashian, who once shared nearly every moment of her life online, later acknowledged the dangers of that hyper-visibility.
“People were watching,” she said in a 2021 interview. “They knew what I had. They knew where I was.”
Earlier in the trial, Ms Kardashian’s childhood friend and then stylist, Simone Harouche, testified that she had been sleeping downstairs when the robbery began. She heard Ms Kardashian’s voice: “‘I have babies and I need to live.’ That is what she kept on saying, ‘Take everything. I need to live.’”
Ms Kardashian, she said, was “screaming with terror in her voice”.
Ms Harouche locked herself in the bathroom and texted Kourtney Kardashian and the bodyguard: “Something is very wrong.” Later, she heard Ms Kardashian hopping down the stairs with her ankles still bound. “She was beside herself,” Harouche said. “She just was screaming.”
Ms Harouche testified that the robbery “forever” changed her friend’s sense of freedom.
“She now has a completely different lifestyle,” she said. “In terms of security, she can’t go alone, she doesn’t go alone to places anymore. To lose your sense of freedom ... it’s horrible.”
Judge David De Pas asked whether Ms Kardashian had made herself a target by posting photos of herself with “jewels of great value”. Ms Harouche rejected the premise. “Just because a woman wears jewellery, that doesn’t make her a target,” she said. “That’s like saying that because a woman wears a short skirt that she deserves to be raped.”
In the days after the robbery, critics like designer Karl Lagerfeld questioned whether Ms Kardashian had shared too much. But as the details emerged, public sentiment began to shift.
In the aftermath, Ms Kardashian withdrew from public life. She developed anxiety and symptoms of agoraphobia.
“I hated to go out,” she said. “I didn’t want anybody to know where I was … I just had such anxiety.”
Ms Kardashian’s lawyers say she is “particularly grateful” to French authorities – and ready to confront those who attacked her.
The trial continues.
