Khloe Kardashian recently revealed that she and sister Kourtney Kardashian Barker were initially opposed to starring in the reality TV show that would make their family famous—until their mother Kris Jenner devised a clever strategy to win them over.
On the April 7 episode of The Morgan Stewart Show podcast, Khloe explained that when she and Kourtney were first approached about Keeping Up With The Kardashians in the early 2000s, their immediate response was a firm refusal. At the time, the sisters were focused on running their newly opened fashion boutique, Dash, in Calabasas.
"I never was like, 'Gosh, I gotta be famous. I need to be on TV,'" Khloe recalled. "Kourt and I, when we were approached to do the show by my mom and Kim, we said, 'No, we're not doing this show.'"
But Kris Jenner, who would later become known as the family's "momager," saw an opportunity. According to Khloe, her mother convinced them by framing the television project as a marketing tool for their business.
"How my mom conned us into doing it was, she said, 'Think of it as a commercial for the store,'" Khloe remembered. "Cause all we wanted to do was focus on the store."
The sisters were deeply involved in every aspect of their boutique at the time. "We had no employees. It was just me and Kourt," Khloe explained. "We had a kids' store and the women's store. And she was at the kids' store; I was at the women's store. We did everything—the cleaning, the taxes, the steaming of the clothes."
Once Kris secured her daughters' participation, the family embarked on a television journey that would span decades. Keeping Up With The Kardashians premiered on E! in October 2007 and ran for 20 seasons, spawning multiple spinoffs and establishing the Kardashian-Jenner clan as reality TV royalty.
Even Kris Jenner herself remains somewhat astonished by the show's enduring success. Speaking to Vanity Fair in March, she reflected on the family's television legacy.
"We're filming, right now, season 28, if you add them all up," she said. "The best one was the first one, and the other best one is the one we're doing right now. Everything in the middle is just a blessing."
The original series concluded in 2021, but the family quickly returned to screens with their Hulu series, The Kardashians, which recently aired its seventh season. Despite the show's longevity, Kris has ruled out a personal spinoff, preferring to focus on her role behind the scenes.
"I'll leave that to the kids at this point," she stated. "I love doing what I'm doing. We love doing the show, but I'll leave that to the rest of them for a bit."
What began as a reluctant agreement to film what Khloe and Kourtney thought would be essentially an extended commercial for their boutique evolved into one of television's most enduring reality franchises—all thanks to Kris Jenner's persuasive vision.