In Paris Trial, Kim Kardashian Faces Her Alleged Robbers

Kim Kardashian said a silent prayer—for her sister, her best friend, her family—as a masked man pulled her toward him in a Paris hotel room in the 2016 jewelry heist that changed her life. She was wearing only a bathrobe. She was bound with zip ties. 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, per the AP. "I absolutely did think I was going to die." The last time Kardashian saw the men that police say robbed her, she was bound at gunpoint and left locked in a marble bathroom while masked assailants stole more than $6 million in jewelry. Nearly a decade later, she returned to Paris to face them—this time from the witness stand.

Kardashian's testimony marked the emotional climax of a trial that has gripped France and reignited debates about fame, privacy, and what it means to live—and nearly die—in public. The night in her suite during Fashion Week in 2016 forever altered her relationship to fame and safety. Dressed in black and wearing dark sunglasses, Kardashian stood in the packed courtroom across from her mother, Kris Jenner. Her voice broke as she thanked French authorities for "allowing me to share my truth." She told the court that the attackers arrived dressed as police officers, with the concierge in handcuffs. "I thought it was some sort of terrorist attack," she said.

She described how they tied her hands with zip ties, dragged her to the bathtub and pointed a gun at her temple. One robber gestured toward her ring. "He said, 'Ring! Ring!' and he pointed to his hand." French prosecutors say the men who orchestrated the heist—most in their 60s and 70s—were part of a seasoned criminal ring that tracked Kardashian's movements through social media. Kardashian, who once shared nearly every moment of her life online, later acknowledged the role that visibility played. "People were watching," she said in a 2021 interview. "They knew what I had. They knew where I was." In the aftermath, Kardashian withdrew from public life. She developed severe anxiety and symptoms of agoraphobia. "I hated to go out," she said. (More Kim Kardashian stories.)