Kim Kardashian reveals real reason she changed her name 18 years ago
The Skims founder also divulged how she convinced her famous family to take the reality TV plunge
Kim Kardashian has revealed why she decided to change her name almost two decades ago, calling the decision quite ‘weird’ in retrospect.
The 45-year-old, who made her reality TV debut during the 2005 pilot of Princess of Malibu before starring in three episodes of Paris Hilton’s The Simple Life, brought the Kardashian-Jenner family to mainstream in 2007 with Keeping Up with the Kardashians.
The show ran on E! for 20 seasons, sparking a myriad of spin-off series’, including Kourtney and Khloe take The Hamptons, Dash Dolls, and Flip It Like Disick, before moving to Hulu as simply The Kardashians, where it continues to thrive.
But before stepping out for the first time in KUWTK, Kim went by a different name, as revealed in a new interview with Time Magazine.
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The Skims founder was recently promoting her new MasterClass: The New Rules of Business: The Ten Kimmandments with Kim Kardashian, when she admitted that she used to exclusively go by her full name.
“I used to always go by Kimberly, until we signed on to do the reality show,” the mom-of-four confessed to the outlet.
“And when I looked at my chyron, Kimberly Kardashian, I said, ‘I think that's so long for people to say.’ And like, ‘Let's just shorten it to Kim'.
“And it's so weird, because all my friends from high school and growing up, and my dad, everyone calls me Kimberly,”
Of course, everyone now knows her as Kim, with the star even using the moniker for acting credits such as American Horror Story: Delicate and the new legal drama, All’s Fair.
Elsewhere in the interview, Kim spoke out on how she persuaded other members of her blended family to take on the reality TV show.
The first season of the programme focused on Kim, her sisters Kourtney and Khloe, and their half-siblings Kylie and Kendall Jenner.
Their brother Rob Kardashian, momager Kris Jenner, Kim’s step-parent Caitlyn Jenner, and Kourtney’s now ex-boyfriend, Scott Disick, quickly became household names, too.
“I think I was the one that convinced everyone for sure. I really wanted it. I really wanted to do a reality show since the day MTV’s The Real World came out and I watched it with my best friend,” she explained.
“I looked at her and I told her, ‘That’s what I’m going to do.’ And she said, ‘I’ll be your manager.’ I think we were 11. I said, ‘When we’re 18, we have to make a tape and send it into The Real World'.
“Her dad’s in the music-business management world. So she said, ‘Oh, we can get my dad to send it to someone at MTV'. We made a whole plan."
Kim also admitted the ‘whole reason’ why she wanted the show was to publicise her now-defunct clothing store, Dash.
The luxury clothes store, which also sold accessories and lingerie, opened in 2006, but was eventually shut down for good in 2018.
“That’s how I was able to get my sisters to sign on,” she said, speaking of Kourtney and Khloe.
“I let them know that, you know, it’ll bring such great promotion to our store. And they were in once they heard that.”
And the rest, as we say, is history, with the Kardashian-Jenner’s now being one of the most famous families on the planet.
Topics: Kim Kardashian, Keeping Up With The Kardashians, Film and TV, Entertainment, Celebrity
Ella Scott