Putting the real in reality TV? The Kardashian-Jenner family members are certainly reality TV royalty, but some fans have questioned the story lines — and editing — over their decades on the small screen.
“We’ve never really edited out crazy content,” Kim Kardashian claimed on the “Pretty Big Deal with Ashley Graham” podcast in 2018. “When you watch [certain scenes], you get heated all over again. We literally start fighting all over again over the same thing. Even if we, like, are so crazy mad at each other, it won’t be long before we’re all good. The fact that so many people text me even now if a rerun comes on, they’re like, ‘Are you and Kourtney [Kardashian] OK?’ And I’m like, ‘We went on vacation together. This has been months since we filmed that.’”
E! viewers know that Keeping Up With the Kardashians ran for 20 seasons from 2007 to 2021. Kim, Kourtney, Khloé Kardashian, Kris Jenner, Kendall Jenner and Kylie Jenner subsequently made the move to Hulu and rebranded the series as The Kardashians. Season 1, which debuted in April 2022, included Khloé learning that her then-boyfriend, Tristan Thompson, cheated on her again and fathered a child with another woman.
“That definitely isn’t fun, but when things are so public, there’s no way around it. I mean, it’s something that I feel viewers would feel slighted or maybe [say], ‘This isn’t a docuseries, it’s not reality, because you’re not talking about this or showing this,’” Khloé said at Disney’s FYC Fest in June 2022. “And the truth is, Kim was filming something else when this story came out on the media. It’s not easy, but it’s also, I think, a form of therapy for me at the same time. I like to see how the rest of my family responds to things, like those little things mean a lot to me.”
The new show also broke the fourth wall, with Kourtney complaining that she didn’t feel her engagement party to Travis Barker looked accurate on the series.
“I liked the fact that we put that in there. We’ve almost given her her voice of the cut that she didn’t like, and we put it on air and I think that’s fair to her,” executive producer Ben Winston said of the moment. “I think when they don’t like the show, I like the fact that they say it, even if that means there are articles saying, ‘Hey, you’re doing stuff they don’t like.’ I think that’s a really fascinating bit, and they deserve huge credit for allowing that.”
Season 1 of The Kardashians is currently streaming on Hulu. Scroll through for more: