Would Robert Kardashian Approve of His Family Now?
Y'all probably think yous know everything at that place is to know almost Kim Kardashian and her siblings.
Simply there is a piffling-known prequel — the twisted story of her parents Robert and Kris' tempestuous wedlock, which was marked past rampant philandering and scandal. Author Jerry Oppenheimer'southward volume "The Kardashians: An American Drama" (St. Martin'due south Press, out Sept. 19) reveals patriarch Robert's infatuation with Elvis Presley's ex-wife Priscilla, Kris' repeated infidelity and Robert'due south confession to his pastor that Khloé Kardashian wasn't his biological girl.
Here, the highlights:
Forever immortalized as the stand up-past-his-man supporter of pal O.J. Simpson, Robert Kardashian rose to notoriety when he served as a legal consultant on the "dream team" that won the athlete a not-guilty verdict in his infamous 1995 murder trial. Robert, a built-in-again Christian of Armenian descent, was built-in in 1944 to a wealthy Los Angeles family; he would later distance himself from the clan's corrupt meatpacking empire. Despite continuing a mere 5-foot-8 and being stricken with a thick white hairline streak in his otherwise jet-black mane, he was considered 1 of Beverly Hills' most eligible bachelors in the 1970s.
'[Robert] loved Khloé very much, merely he said it in a way that implied that "She's not my blood daughter."'
- Robert'due south pastor, Kenn Gulliksen
Born in 1955, Kristen "Kris" Houghton came from "redneck" roots and was raised in San Diego by her tough-as-nails maternal grandmother subsequently her alcoholic father left when she was vii. By 12th course, Kris wasn't dreaming about prom or college, but looking for a man — a rich one. Loftier school pal Joan Zimmerman thought Kris' mom, Mary Jo, was "kind of pimping her out" when the 17-yr-old started a relationship with golf pro Cesar Sanudo, who was more than 10 years her senior. That ended when Kris met Robert — who thought the teenager looked like a immature Natalie Wood, despite a necklace that read "OH, Southward – – T" — at a horse-racing track and cheated on her swain with him.
As Jack Spradlin, a friend of Sanudo's, said: "[Kris] saw a far better financial opportunity with Kardashian than with Cesar."
Notwithstanding, Robert idea Kris was too young for things to be serious, and soon dumped her for Priscilla Presley. He may accept been besotted with the famous ex-married woman of Elvis, but she merely went out with Robert because "she had no one else to go out with," according to a cousin.
A worldly and "kinky" Presley groomed Robert, telling him how to dress and what kind of auto to drive. The human relationship, however, would never escape the specter of her famous ex. Robert "complained to a friend that while he was making love to Priscilla, she would get incoherent phone calls from [her ex-husband] Elvis 'and she would put the receiver on the pillow betwixt them and allow him listen,' " Oppenheimer writes.
Robert aimed to plough Priscilla into "the perfect Armenian housewife."
"Priscilla once tried to make dinner for Robert because he kept asking her," said Joni Migdal, his friend since childhood. "She cooked asparagus, and she made this, and she made that . . . She went out of her manner to brand it perfect for him, and he hated it."
Priscilla was insulted. Shortly, she told Robert: "I'chiliad not going to marry anyone until Elvis dies."
He wasn't lonely for long. A heartsick Kris, by then an American Airlines flight bellboy, had been destroyed by Robert's human relationship with glam Priscilla and readily took him back, moving into his Beverly Hills manse right abroad. He was a lawyer and entrepreneur who made a killing with one of his investments, driving both a Rolls-Royce and a Mercedes; she was scraping by and had cipher to her name. Still, her fancy swain refused to give her money for anything, including much-needed new tires for her old Mazda.
"She needs to learn the value of a dollar," Robert told Migdal. Ironically, this would backlash on Robert after he married Kris in 1978. In one case they shared banking concern accounts, she would rebel against his prior constraints by becoming monstrously improvident. When she dropped three yard on a single belt, her husband was apoplectic: "Tin can y'all f – – king believe that? Who needs a chugalug for $3,000?"
Where he failed to mold Priscilla into the perfect submissive housewife, Robert was adamant to succeed with young Kris. Friends told Oppenheimer nearly how he was "totally turned on" by the 1975 movie "The Stepford Wives."
"[It] was the model for Robert'south spousal relationship to Kris," said Migdal. According to another friend, "He had a fantasy about being able to boss women." Equally a way of training his loftier school-educated bride, Robert gave her self-aid audiotapes to teach her how to throw a party and decorate for the holidays.
"Kris would say, 'Oh God, I have to finish these tapes before the week is out because we're going to talk about them,' " recalled friend Larry Kraines.
Robert, who had adorned his car with a fish insignia to prove his born-over again status, kept copies of the Bible on his nightstand, on his desk-bound and on his person at all times.
While Kris attended church building with her married man, Robert's pastor, Kenn Gulliksen, harbored doubts nearly her sincerity: "I just sensed that Kris saw in Bob a kind of gold mine. Robert was a very generous man, and that was . . . proficient for Kris."
Afterwards daughters Kourtney and Kim were born (in 1979 and 1980, respectively), the family unit moved into a 7,000-square-pes estate in Beverly Hills' virtually "prestigious" section, complete with tennis courts and a duck-shaped swimming puddle. Kris' audiotape lessons had paid off, and the home became "political party central."
They oftentimes hung out with Robert's friend O.J. Simpson. Sometimes, Simpson would have Kris call a very young girl — "possibly still in high school" — whom he was seeing, in case her parents answered. Then she would hand him the phone.
It seemed the family was flourishing. Robert had sold one of his businesses, the trade publication Radio & Records, "for a bundle." But with the 1984 arrival of their third child, Khloé, the couple couldn't ignore an elephant in the room: They hadn't had sex during the time she had to accept been conceived.
Gulliksen recalled that "it was my strong impression from him that [Robert] loved Khloé very much, but he said it in a way that implied that 'She's not my blood daughter.' "
He was unwilling to take a Deoxyribonucleic acid test to confirm information technology, and told Migdal that "whoever her father is . . . she is my child." Years afterwards, his two subsequent wives — Jan Ashley and Ellen Pierson — attested that Robert claimed that Khloé wasn't his biological daughter.
Soon, Kris' affairs would be more out in the open. Despite all the blessings — and bling — of a overjoyed Beverly Hills life, she became "bored and rebellious." Afterward getting a new pair of breasts, she reportedly decided she wanted liberty.
"Kris would tell Robert, 'I need to go out. I demand to accept fun,' " Migdal said. "[She] was coming abode at ii and 3 in the morning drunk, and she would tell Robert, 'I have four kids and I have non lived life.' " (Son Rob was born in 1987.)
Kris began seeing a soccer role player, Todd Waterman, introducing him equally her boyfriend at parties and paying his bills with Robert's coin. Waterman recalled that a immature Khloé would get with them on dates: "She'd exist in the back seat of the car." Once, after Kris told her husband that Waterman was her tennis instructor, the two played on the Kardashian court while Robert watched.
But shortly enough, Robert caught Waterman and Kris "three unlike times," she said, including at the other man'due south apartment and on a eating house date. Upon finding them together in Waterman'southward car once, Robert jumped out of his Mercedes with a golf order in mitt. "He took a swing and whacked the back of my auto," said Waterman. Kris told him to "go on driving — [Robert] might take a gun in the auto."
Another time, equally Simpson stood by, Robert phoned Waterman and yelled: "You lot just f – – ked Snow White! Practice yous know what you've done to this unabridged universe, you asshole? Now you . . have to deal with me."
The Kardashians finally divorced in 1991. Months later, Kris married Olympian Bruce Jenner, her "best lover."
Jenner — who decades afterward would transition to existence a adult female named Caitlyn — had already wed twice earlier. After his beginning wife, Chrystie Crownover, left him, he stayed for a while at the Playboy Mansion.
"Bruce became like i of the Bunnies," said a longtime mansion regular. "I nighttime he's boogieing in a tux with the girls at a dress-up political party, and the next night he'd exist like one of the girls and all dressed up — makeup, hosiery, loftier heels, the whole nine yards. I thought he was simply being funny, like when Milton Berle used to come on TV in drag."
He may have been ane of the most famous athletes of the 1970s, but by the early '90s Jenner "had little money . . . and was living in a dumpy footling house." When he moved in with Kris, Jenner brought along his parents.
"Simply put," Oppenheimer writes, "[Kris] was 'very pissed off,' according to friends."
She would, apparently, go over information technology, nevertheless, with the two going on to take daughters Kendall (in 1995) and Kylie (in 1997) and star together in the reality Idiot box serial "Keeping Upwardly With the Kardashians."
Robert, meanwhile, was about to go a household name. After bosom buddy Simpson was arrested in 1994 for the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole, and her friend Ron Goldman, Robert chose to steadfastly support him, showing up to court nearly every mean solar day every bit a fellow member of the athlete's legal "dream team." He wrote a letter to Kris and his kids in 1995, once the trial was in full swing: "I truly believe in O.J.'due south innocence, and unless they observe him guilty, I will continue to back up him . . . Delight exist understanding."
Kris, who had been one of Nicole's closest friends, was "furious" with her ex'south defense of O.J. (Years later, Kourtney would get into the University of Arizona with an essay titled "My Parents Were on Reverse Sides of the O.J. Simpson Trial.")
Elsewhere in Robert'due south life, reactions were mixed. Some friends and colleagues deserted him. "No one ever turned their back on someone like they did on Robert over the O.J. thing," recalled Migdal. People would spit on him while he was in his convertible.
On the other manus, he often got "glory treatment" because of the public fascination with the televised trial, snagging the best tables at Beverly Hills restaurants. Roger Moore sought him out to chat. Actor Rod Steiger sent wine to his table. Robert hoped that Al Pacino or Robert De Niro would play him in a time to come O.J. movie. (Little did he know he would instead terminate up with David "Ross from 'Friends' " Schwimmer.)
The fallout from the trial took a toll on the entire Kardashian family. Just the kids were moving on with their lives — and the apples didn't fall far from the tree. By 2000, Kim was a bride at age 19.
Robert was "upset" when Kim wed her first husband, Damon Thomas, who is African-American. Co-ordinate to an Oppenheimer source, Robert said: "I know these black guys, and I know they love white p—y. O.J. always brags well-nigh how much he and those guys get. The trouble is my kids are liberal, maybe besides liberal, and I have no one to arraign but myself because I introduced them to Uncle O.J."
In 2003, Robert was diagnosed with esophageal cancer; when he died some eight weeks later, he reportedly weighed eighty pounds. Earlier he passed, Priscilla Presley called to tell him she loved him.
"Information technology brought tears to his eyes," Oppenheimer writes.
Years later, subsequently Robert's kids became world-famous, his widow Ellen Pierson — who was said to have frozen out his closest friends — sold off excerpts of what was allegedly his diary, in which he wrote most Kris and Waterman's sleeping together in his bed and leaving their kids unattended while she "screwed all nighttime." It detailed Kris' allegedly abusive nature, describing her as pulling Kourtney'south hair and twisting her artillery, also claiming that "scared and nervous" Kim had too been browbeaten by their mother.
Kris sued Pierson in 2013 on the basis of copyright infringement, claiming that Robert's kids owned the copyrights for his diaries. Pierson filed legal papers for defamation, emotional distress and civil conspiracy to defame, claiming the Kardashians only filed their lawsuit for utilize as a plot point for their TV show.
The copyright claim was settled in 2014, when Pierson returned the diaries to the Kardashians, who too collected $84,000.
Robert'due south friend Kraines insists the late human would be as "proud as punch" of his girls today. "Would Robert take liked Kim'south sex record, and all that horses – – t? Probably not. Simply would he accept liked the fact that they have made a tremendous amount of money? Definitely!"
As for Kris, who divorced Jenner in 2015, sources say she wants to follow in the footsteps of another reality Television receiver star.
The mom of six has told people she wants to run for political office — on a platform of advocacy for single moms — saying she and Donald Trump have the same kind of DNA. "If Mr. Weird Hair tin can exercise it, so can I," she's reportedly said.
Co-ordinate to a "apparent source": "She has so much conviction that talking about the presidency one day isn't out of the question for her."
Source: https://pagesix.com/2017/08/05/the-sordid-kardashian-family-history-you-dont-know-about/
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