Kim Kardashian has faced the gang of elderly men accused of robbing her at gunpoint in a Paris hotel room in 2016, telling a French court she feared she would be raped and murdered during the terrifying ordeal.
The reality TV star and business mogul gave graphic and emotional testimony on Tuesday as she came face to face with the 10 alleged robbers, now mostly in their 60s and 70s, in a long-awaited trial nearly a decade after the incident.
Wearing a black suit and long black skirt, Kardashian appeared composed as she arrived at the Palais de Justice in Paris, but inside the courtroom, she broke down while describing the night masked men burst into her luxury hotel suite during Paris Fashion Week.
“I was naked… everything was exposed. I was sure I was going to be raped,” Kardashian told the court, recounting how one of the men dragged her by the legs while another pointed a gun at her.
The mother-of-four revealed she begged for her life, praying her sister Kourtney wouldn’t return to find her body. “I absolutely thought I was going to die,” she told the presiding judge, adding that she feared the traumatic scene would scar her family forever.
Kardashian, 44, said the robbers entered her suite at the Hôtel de Pourtalès dressed as police officers and accompanied by the hotel concierge, who had been handcuffed. The gang reportedly demanded her engagement ring repeatedly, shouting the word “ring” while pointing at her hand.
Speaking through a translator, she said she pleaded with the concierge: “I have babies, tell them I just have to make it home.” But the concierge offered little reassurance, replying: “I don’t know if we’re going to die.”
At the time of the robbery, Kardashian was wearing only a bathrobe. After the gang left, she managed to free her hands—though her ankles and mouth were still taped—and hopped down a staircase to find her stylist and longtime friend, Simone Harouche, who was staying on a lower floor. The two women hid in the bushes outside the building while Kardashian phoned her mother, Kris Jenner.
“I didn’t know if the police were real or fake,” she added, explaining her confusion when authorities arrived at the scene.
Kardashian wore more than $1.5 million in diamonds to court, including an 80-diamond necklace by Samer Halimeh New York featuring a 10.13-carat pear-shaped centrepiece. She also wore a diamond anklet, rings and an $8,100 Briony Raymond ear cuff.
The accused—dubbed the “grandpa gang” by the French press—allegedly made off with approximately $10 million in jewellery during the 2016 raid, including Kardashian’s $4 million, 18.8-carat diamond engagement ring from then-fiancé Kanye West. Only one item, a diamond cross, has ever been recovered.
Kardashian’s legal team said she had returned to Paris determined to face her alleged attackers “with dignity and courage.” She is expected to be questioned by the judge, then her lawyers, followed by the prosecution and defence.
The trial continues.
