Divorcing? Separated? In counseling? Rumors swirl around Kardashian-West marriage
Kim Kardashian West and Kanye West appear headed for divorce, according to a host of reports. The news isn’t too surprising, given the troubled history between the beauty mogul and the rapper, but it’s also far from nailed down.
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The reports are both certain and speculative, with anonymous sources quoted everywhere but neither of the spouses speaking on the record or through their reps. Parsing out the facts is challenging, but the rumors do follow a general path — one that seems destined to end with a split.
Word that “divorce is imminent” came first via Page Six, which reported Tuesday that Kardashian had hired top attorney Laura Wasser, who handled the reality star’s split from NBA player Kris Humphries in 2013. TMZ noted, however, that Wasser has been on retainer with Kardashian for years, for various reasons.
“They are keeping it low-key but they are done. ... they are in settlement talks,” a source told Page Six.
“She is serious about taking the bar exam and becoming a lawyer, she is serious about her prison reform campaign,” the source said. “Meanwhile Kanye is talking about running for president and saying other crazy [stuff], and she’s just had enough of it.”
The marriage has been in deep trouble since at least the middle of 2020, multiple sources told TMZ, and the husband and wife have been living separately for months. Kardashian has stayed in Calabasas with their four kids — and spent Christmas with the Kardashian-Jenner family — while West has mostly been in Wyoming. A family vacation in August didn’t have the desired effect, apparently.
The outlet said divorce is on the table but added that Kardashian has been holding off beacause of concerns over West’s mental health.
West announced on the Fourth of July that he was running for president on the Birthday Party ticket. Later that month, he mentioned divorce at a rally in South Carolina, where he discussed, among other things, how he and Kardashian considered abortion after she revealed she was pregnant with their eldest daughter, North. After he spilled those details, he mentioned how his wife was likely to seek a divorce over his revelation.
Soon after the rally, West embarked on a tweet storm in which he accused Kardashian of trying to fly to their Wyoming ranch with a doctor “to lock me up like on the movie Get Out because I cried about saving my daughters life yesterday.”
Kardashian spoke out publicly soon after, saying in her Instagram story, “He is a brilliant but complicated person who on top of the pressures of being an artist and a black man, who experienced the painful loss of his mother, and has to deal with the pressure and isolation that is heightened by his bi-polar disorder. Those who are close with Kanye know his heart and understand his words some times do not align with his intentions.”
She noted that the family was “powerless” to help West, and that it was up to him to “engage in the process of getting help.”
The rapper was hospitalized in 2016. In a 2018 visit to the White House, he told President Trump that he had been misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder and was simply sleep deprived.
In September, People reported that the couple was on “the brink of divorce” and that West wasn’t taking his medications.
“He promised he’d stay on them,” a source told the outlet. “The last time, part of his negotiation with Kim was that he’d get back on his medication and he would work very hard to control his impulses. He made a lot of promises. And now those promises are broken, less than a month later.”
People said Tuesday that Kardashian was preparing to divorce West but “waffling,” quoting a source who said the rapper was “OK” with the likely split: “He’s sad, but OK. He knows the inevitable will happen, and he knows that it’s coming soon.”
Rapper Kanye West conceded defeat in the election after trailing President Trump and Joe Biden by tens of millions of votes. But there’s always 2024.
The only reason Kardashian hasn’t filed papers, according to Fox News, is that she is concerned about their children.
West and Kardashian, who first met in 2000, welcomed daughter North in June 2013 and got engaged that October. They were married in a lavish ceremony in Florence, Italy, in May 2014.
In addition to North, who is 7, the couple share kids Saint, 5, Chicago, 2, and Psalm, 1.
Kardashian was previously married to Humphries for only 72 days in 2011 — though the divorce wasn’t finalized until 2013 — and to music producer Damon Thomas from 2000 to 2003. This is West’s first marriage.
Times staff writer Nardine Saad contributed to this report.
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