THE MAKING OF A REALITY ICON This is the real story behind Kim Kardashian’s sex tape… and how it made her a star (SEX VIDEO)
BACK in 2002, Kim Kardashian was not the A-list megastar she is today.
The then 22-year-old was a little known heiress to the late lawyer Robert Kardashian, the personal stylist of singer Brandy Norwood and girlfriend of his little brother Willie “Ray J” Norwood.
But a sex tape was about to change all that.
In October of that year, the couple went on a trip to the luxury Esperanza resort in Cabo, Mexico, to celebrate Kim’s 23rd birthday.
They took a handheld camcorder with them and filmed themselves goofing around for the camera, and also having sex.
By 2006, Kim was beginning to make a small number of appearances in the media as the best friend of Paris Hilton, the Hilton hotel heiress who had found global fame as the star of both Fox’s The Simple Life and 1 Night in Paris - a 2004 sex tape that she had filmed with ex-boyfriend Rick Salomon.
In March 2007, the tapes that Kim and Ray J had made were released to the public by porn company Vivid Entertainment as Kim Kardashian, Superstar, a 41-minute movie.
Kim sued to prevent it from being released before settling out of court - but the ten years since have seen the one-time stylist transform pop culture.
This is the story of that movie, beginning in the months leading up to its release.
Showbiz blogger Perez Hilton said: “Kim was a young, ambitious thing and she was determined to make it in Hollywood, because she didn’t graduate college, she wouldn’t necessarily have got a real job.
“She did the closet thing [Kim had started a business organising celebrities’ closets and sharing the proceeds from any clothes they sold on eBay] and what not, but she clearly wanted more.”
Kevin Dickson, a former editor at In Touch Weekly said: “I had become friends with Kim, and she would give me stories [about herself] every week and we would promise her coverage and then the editors would back out.
“So it was really hard to get her coverage. Then she got on The Simple Life.
“That was one of the conditions [we gave her for us to be able to write about her in the magazine]: You have to be on TV. “
Perez added: “Back then, one of the things that got her a lot of attention in addition to being Paris Hilton’s friend, before the sex tape and before the reality show, she was the very first girl that Nick Lachey was spotted on a date with after his split from Jessica Simpson.
“It was only one date, but of course conveniently they were photographed by the paparazzi on that date. Wonder how they found out about that!”
Kevin added: “That was one of the early stunts that backfired.
“We tried to get her to f *** Nick Lachey so she could be a celebrity girlfriend.
“She would literally bake him a basket of muffins and try to get him to come to her house and he wouldn’t go and so they went to dinner somewhere in the North Valley and we had paparazzi there.
“But our paparazzi told all the other paparazzi. It was a mess.”
Kim’s lawyer, Marty Singer, insists that Kardashian has never planted stories about herself in the tabloids or tipped off paparazzi about her whereabouts.
He told NY Post: “Unlike many people who try to leak information about themselves so they are written up in Page Six and the New York Post, my client did not do so.”
He also stated that his client did not lie about the existence of the sex tape.
Kevin also added that when he tried to contact Kim when the sex tape rumour came out, he found himself talking to Paris Hilton while Kim “was crying in the background.”
He added: “Kim denied it and denied it and she was denying and crying at the same time.”
In the end, Kim stopped trying to prevent the publication of the tape and settled with Vivid in February 2007.
Steven Hirsch, the founder and co-chairman of Vivid Entertainment, said: “Ultimately she did sell us the footage so we had the ability to put it out and distribute it.”
Reports claim that Kim was paid $5 million (£3.98million) a figure that Kim's attorney described as “greatly inflated.”
Steven Hirsch added: “I can only say that it’s the most popular tape we’ve ever done.
“Revenue-wise it has generated more income than any other tape that we’ve done.”
Kim Kardashian, Superstar was released by Vivid on March 21, 2007 and Kim’s fame soared – but her friendship with Paris came to an end.
In August 2007, Paris' series The Simple Life was cancelled by MTV and two weeks later it was announced that they had commissioned a series with Kim and her family.
The sex tape has been viewed online more than 150 million times and Vivid has named March 2017 as Kim K. Sex Tape Month.
Full story originally appeared in the NY Post.
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