Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin, and here's the thing. I'd like to
Speaker 1: play a little word association. Say the first thing that
Speaker 1: comes to your mind when I say Kardashian. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: I get that now. I'd like you to listen in
Speaker 1: on a conversation I had with Chris Kardashian Jenner, the
Speaker 1: matriarch of the Kardashian Empire. When we're done, let's do
Speaker 1: a word association again and see if you have a
Speaker 1: different response. I met Chris over ten years ago. Sing
Speaker 1: a song with me. Chris, ready, sing a song. We're
Speaker 1: going to sing. The song will come out tomorrow. I'll
Speaker 1: bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow. Our daughters attended school together.
Speaker 1: And added bonus there was that Chris's husband, Olympic decathlon
Speaker 1: champion Bruce Jenner, was their private track coach. And then
Speaker 1: and say, okay, that's enough, right. Chris Jenner always calls
Speaker 1: the shots. She describes herself this way, complete control freak.
Speaker 1: She and her husband Bruce have ten kids between them.
Speaker 1: We're most familiar with their five girls, Courtney, Chloe, Kim, Kendall,
Speaker 1: and Kylie, who, along with their parents, are the subjects
Speaker 1: of Keeping up with the Kardashians and three spinoff shows
Speaker 1: on the cable channel E. This is a family that's
Speaker 1: used to publicity even before their TV shows existed. A
Speaker 1: former boyfriend of Kim's leaked to sex video of the
Speaker 1: two of them. It's clear this family has made the
Speaker 1: most of the spotlight and nothing is off topic. Seriously,
Speaker 1: that you need a bikini acs from here. By now,
Speaker 1: we're all pretty used to the reality TV concept. But
Speaker 1: in the early nineteen seventies, when PBS turned a camera
Speaker 1: on the Loud Family in northern California to create the
Speaker 1: program An American Family, this was breaking new ground. The
Speaker 1: Louds are neither average nor typical. No family is. Did
Speaker 1: you watch the American Family? You can see the Louds
Speaker 1: when they want. Ever watch that show so that you
Speaker 1: know who they are. Right. So, American Family was considered
Speaker 1: the mother of all reality shows, and the Louds were
Speaker 1: this family where they kept the camera on them and
Speaker 1: a lot of things happened. The sun Lanceloud came out
Speaker 1: as a homosexual on camera, the parents split up on camera.
Speaker 1: It was really like the family had allowed themselves to
Speaker 1: be shot verite style, hour after hour after hour, and
Speaker 1: these people had no sense of humor. How are you doing? Oh,
Speaker 1: I up from a nap, didn't you? I'm getting and
Speaker 1: a boy. And how about food? Are you getting a
Speaker 1: lot of food? Well? I think you guys have to
Speaker 1: stay united and realize that anything that either one of
Speaker 1: you does builds the whole. Kardashian brand. My sister, Yes,
Speaker 1: the brand. The Kardashian Collection, a line of clothes and
Speaker 1: accessories that Chris and her family recently launched. Last year,
Speaker 1: the family earned sixty million dollars in profits. Chris Kardashian
Speaker 1: Jenner explained where it all began. We've always been a
Speaker 1: really close, big family. I met Bruce. I had four kids,
Speaker 1: he had four kids. We got married, had two kids. No,
Speaker 1: we have this family with ten kids. So your first husband,
Speaker 1: Robert and I was married four kids with him while
Speaker 1: I was going through my divorce. I met Bruce Jenner
Speaker 1: at the very end of like, I was days away
Speaker 1: from a finalization of my divorce and never really wanted
Speaker 1: to date much more. I was like, I was done.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to raise my kids. And you know,
Speaker 1: it kicked my ass a little bit. Even though I
Speaker 1: was the one who left the marriage. It was really
Speaker 1: hard met Bruce and we got married seven months later. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we had this big, crazy family and everybody who spent
Speaker 1: any amount of time with us would say, you guys
Speaker 1: should do your own reality show. They would observe the
Speaker 1: swirlings on was an active behind craziness everything you see. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of big, crazy personalities in one household makes
Speaker 1: for a lot of drama at all times. So what
Speaker 1: happened was we were having dinner one night with a
Speaker 1: friend of mine, Dina Katz, who happens to be the
Speaker 1: casting director for Dancing with the Stars, came by the
Speaker 1: house for dinner with her husband, saw the pandemonium that
Speaker 1: was going on in my house with Courtney walking in
Speaker 1: and Kim swirling around and um, somebody yelling for my
Speaker 1: seven year old line one, and she was like, this
Speaker 1: is nuts. Do you guys need your own reality show?
Speaker 1: She said, you know, I just came from a meeting
Speaker 1: at Ryan's Seacrests office today and they're looking for a
Speaker 1: reality show. If I call him, will you take a meeting?
Speaker 1: And I said absolutely. Within thirty days we were shooting
Speaker 1: our show. So was the show that you're doing the
Speaker 1: show that was pitched that it evolved when I came
Speaker 1: home and said, family, we have a show. We all
Speaker 1: sat down, especially Kim, and said, if we're going to
Speaker 1: do this, we're going to roll camera at all times.
Speaker 1: What did they say about that? Everybody agreed. Courtney was
Speaker 1: a little hesitant. She's my oldest. She is the most practical,
Speaker 1: she thinks about things. She's the most like you. No,
Speaker 1: because I'm more spontaneous. I'm very If you said to
Speaker 1: me right now, let's go ski and the Alps, I'd go,
Speaker 1: let's go. She can't even pick out carpet. Takes her
Speaker 1: a week to pick a color, so she she had
Speaker 1: to digest the whole thing. And that's fine. She did that,
Speaker 1: and she decided, you know what, this could be a
Speaker 1: lot of fun. I think what attracted all of us
Speaker 1: was the fact of, Wow, we're going to be able
Speaker 1: to I feel like the luckiest woman in the world
Speaker 1: because I get to get up every single day and
Speaker 1: I work with my kids and my family, and I mean,
Speaker 1: you can get more controlling than that. To me, you
Speaker 1: are a parent, and you are a confidant and a
Speaker 1: friend with a parent to the extent that any parent
Speaker 1: can be. But also, you know, are you the one
Speaker 1: calling the shots. Business wise, who tells the three beatles
Speaker 1: here what to do? Me? You do? Yeah, So you're
Speaker 1: the boss, you are the more manager, and you either
Speaker 1: tell them or cajole them into doing what you think
Speaker 1: needs to be done for their business interests. Now, that's
Speaker 1: a good way to put it, telling cajole. Do the
Speaker 1: girls wake up some days to say I don't want
Speaker 1: to be this person. I don't want to do this
Speaker 1: crap another day? That's grind the grind. Lots of people
Speaker 1: think that doing a show like we do is very easy,
Speaker 1: but what comes with it is you now have a
Speaker 1: responsibility to not only your family, but you have a
Speaker 1: responsibility to an entire network. Now you're the number one
Speaker 1: show hit show on a network that's getting incredible numbers.
Speaker 1: You've remade that network. I don't know about that. But
Speaker 1: we work really hard. These girls have the best work ethic.
Speaker 1: They will wake up at four o'clock in the morning
Speaker 1: and they work until they fall down, and they get
Speaker 1: up the next day and they do it all over again.
Speaker 1: Courtney amazes me every single day. She's a new mom.
Speaker 1: She gave birth and a week later they were doing
Speaker 1: a photo shoot. I lay in bed for ten days
Speaker 1: after I gave birth and eight bond bonds. And one
Speaker 1: of the things I'm wondering is could the Kardashians as
Speaker 1: the public know them, could they have existed in Chicago
Speaker 1: or Cincinnati or how much of your life you Chris
Speaker 1: Jenner is driven by the Los Angeles cultural impart in
Speaker 1: my mind, one that focuses on wealth, fame, beauty. It
Speaker 1: definitely would not be the same show someplace else. There
Speaker 1: would be a much different dynamic because of the way
Speaker 1: that I would maybe naturally raise my kids. But here's
Speaker 1: the interesting thing. You've seen where I live. I've seen
Speaker 1: a couple of places you've lived, rural in hidden hills,
Speaker 1: in the community of the shinier house now than used
Speaker 1: to have. After that, you know, we've lost up the floors,
Speaker 1: but it's still a neighborhood that's horsey and rural and family.
Speaker 1: You know, it's the kind of place where we enjoy
Speaker 1: spending our time, even though we have that Hollywood craziness
Speaker 1: swirling around us at all times. Los Angeles, because I
Speaker 1: moved there when I was an it's really all I know.
Speaker 1: I get energy off of it. It's what makes me tick.
Speaker 1: There's always something to do I love the Hollywood side
Speaker 1: of it. What do you think the girls would have
Speaker 1: done with their lives? Have they not been doing what
Speaker 1: they're doing before we did the show? Where were they headed?
Speaker 1: We opened stores, one of them was Smooched, the children's
Speaker 1: clothing store, remember, and the other was Dash. All that
Speaker 1: was going on long before. Yeah, we would have been
Speaker 1: so happy. This is starting with my mom. My mother
Speaker 1: had to do something to make a living for herself.
Speaker 1: My grandmother had a candle store in Lahoya. What happened
Speaker 1: was my dad passed away. He was in a car accident,
Speaker 1: was in I See You for sixteen weeks in a
Speaker 1: hospital in San Diego. Died my stepdad. And during that time,
Speaker 1: my mother called me up and she said, listen, I'm
Speaker 1: going to close my store because I really want to
Speaker 1: go be with your dad. Every day at I see
Speaker 1: you and I see try not closing your store. You
Speaker 1: just bought all the clothes for Easter. I'm coming down.
Speaker 1: I'm going to run your store. I would go to
Speaker 1: my mom's for five days, come home for five of hours.
Speaker 1: And this went on until my dad eventually passed away
Speaker 1: and I came home after the funeral, and I was
Speaker 1: very sad, and I called up Courtney and I said, Courtney,
Speaker 1: I know this sounds crazy, but I'm opening up a
Speaker 1: children's store. I miss working at Grandma's. Do you want
Speaker 1: to be my partner. We had no business plan, we
Speaker 1: had no idea what we were doing. We drove around Calabasas.
Speaker 1: I said, I like that store. I leased it. That
Speaker 1: day we went to the mart. We bought like seven
Speaker 1: Bruce after seven months. You're a decisive gala in a
Speaker 1: good way. But what I want to say to you
Speaker 1: is how much did you make decisions? What if one
Speaker 1: of your daughters turned down you tomorrow said I'm out,
Speaker 1: I'm done. I respect my kids so much for their
Speaker 1: own particular personalities, but the one thing that's so important
Speaker 1: to me is their faith. I've taken them to church
Speaker 1: since the day they were born. It's such a big
Speaker 1: part of our Yeah, well he's on the golf course,
Speaker 1: we go to church. We have long conversation about, you know,
Speaker 1: the difference between what's really superficial and fluffy and everything else.
Speaker 1: And tell me about that. Because these are girls who
Speaker 1: obviously are characterized and are framed as kind of the
Speaker 1: you know, the the zenith of kind of of the moment,
Speaker 1: current young beauty, and three years from now it's going
Speaker 1: to be keeping up with the Clons or somebody, right.
Speaker 1: So I think that what makes them so amazing is
Speaker 1: they don't take themselves too seriously. When you get to
Speaker 1: know them, you really realize. People will say to me,
Speaker 1: I spent time with Kim and she's unbelievable. She's gorgeous
Speaker 1: on the inside too, And I'm like, yeah, how much
Speaker 1: as a woman have you been focused on and thus
Speaker 1: imparted to your daughters that as women you need to
Speaker 1: have your own financial security. How much of this was
Speaker 1: about your drive that you want your own money that's yours.
Speaker 1: It's never a bad idea to have your own pile. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I think that they're very motive. Courtney is the most
Speaker 1: frugal and my oldest, and she loves business and she
Speaker 1: loves making money, and so does Kim, and so does Chloe,
Speaker 1: and they love. They will scold me, mom, why would
Speaker 1: you buy that? You know that's way too much money?
Speaker 1: Or well, how could you do that and save for
Speaker 1: a rainy day? And like the chables returned. They're telling
Speaker 1: me like, you're in the family flow your role mom,
Speaker 1: because you're like out of control. Yeah. They have taught
Speaker 1: me something about business and work ethic, and I have
Speaker 1: interested them about drive and about having your own things.
Speaker 1: All my children except for Robert and Kendall and Kylie
Speaker 1: have gone out and bought their own homes. They're working
Speaker 1: people who contribute to society. You know, you have to
Speaker 1: look at the whole picture and go, wow, you know what.
Speaker 1: They may be crazy, but they're good crazy. More of
Speaker 1: my conversation with Chris Kardashian Jenner is coming up in
Speaker 1: a minute. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's
Speaker 1: the thing. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to
Speaker 1: here's the thing. I'm talking with Chris Kardashian jen Or,
Speaker 1: the matriarch of the Kardashian clan. Was this the plan?
Speaker 1: Did you think you were going to end up where
Speaker 1: you are now doing what you're doing with this multi
Speaker 1: headed hydra of jewelry and fragrances and clothes? And it
Speaker 1: was the wish, the fantasy. It was to have a
Speaker 1: clothing line. The fantasy was to have a fragrance. We
Speaker 1: had retail stores. I was working in a shop. I
Speaker 1: sold t shirts. This is what I did all day long.
Speaker 1: When you have a retail store, you want customers. Somebody
Speaker 1: says to you, we could do a TV show and
Speaker 1: we're going to shine a camera on your shop every day. Hello,
Speaker 1: I'm signing up. The TV show was really just something
Speaker 1: you did because it's it's the other things that you
Speaker 1: wanted to do and all just kind of give up.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you this, I think I got really lucky. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not quite sure that I would ever
Speaker 1: want to live that kind of life. Someone said to me,
Speaker 1: what's your greatest dream me? And I said, well, I've
Speaker 1: got a whole raft of them, and there's many things
Speaker 1: I'd like to do. I said, my dream would be
Speaker 1: to sleep in the same bed for one year and
Speaker 1: never get on an airplane for a year. But you
Speaker 1: have to remember that most of the year, if we're shooting,
Speaker 1: I'm in my own bed, in my own house a long.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I could do that meaning contruse
Speaker 1: to me. I wanted my home to be this sanctuary
Speaker 1: where when I closed the door, that's where I knew
Speaker 1: there was no cameras and I could say the F
Speaker 1: bomb and I could be whatever I wanted to be.
Speaker 1: Now to link this to something else. You know your husband, Bruce,
Speaker 1: he's a pretty rock rib conservative guy. The Bruce that
Speaker 1: I knew was in a network of very you know,
Speaker 1: kind of moderately conservative golfing buddies with Arnold. He's not
Speaker 1: a Hollywood liberal by any stretch. And he and I
Speaker 1: would joke with each other about that. I'd pull up
Speaker 1: to the school to drop my door in a Prius
Speaker 1: and Bruce would be like, in an escalade and he
Speaker 1: would laugh at me. He'd be like, that's what you're driving, buddy, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's crazy. What has this whole experience done to your
Speaker 1: marriage or for your marriage? And what's it done to
Speaker 1: or for Bruce's career? Meaning Bruce had his own identity
Speaker 1: as a man who not only won the decathlon, the
Speaker 1: Olympic gold medal in the decathlon, but posted very, very
Speaker 1: valid times. The score that he posted was a world
Speaker 1: record eight thousand, six hundred and thirty four points. And
Speaker 1: I will tell you that last week at the US
Speaker 1: Truck and Field Championships, the guy who posted number one
Speaker 1: still did not have eight thousand, six hundred and so Bruce.
Speaker 1: Everybody knows who Bruce's and he's this athletic. God, Believe me.
Speaker 1: When I was a kid, I was at the breakfast
Speaker 1: table with the wheat. He's on my table, and you know,
Speaker 1: I was going, how do I get to be him? So?
Speaker 1: What has this whole experience meant to Bruce and to
Speaker 1: your marriage? Bruce is amazingly I don't know where he
Speaker 1: gets it, this inner strength and character and zen that
Speaker 1: he has deep down inside where a bomb could go
Speaker 1: off in the living room and he would go, what
Speaker 1: was that? Nothing rattles him and he I think has
Speaker 1: great faith in me. He trusts me. What bothers Bruce
Speaker 1: and really gets him crazy mad is when they talk inappropriately,
Speaker 1: like Chloe. You know, she can talk like a sailor sometimes.
Speaker 1: You know, they've just always been a little rough around
Speaker 1: the edges, not Kim at all. But Courtney can really
Speaker 1: sing a fine tune and Chloe, Yeah, Chloe can drop
Speaker 1: the bomb. I didn't raise them like that. I mean
Speaker 1: I once in a while can have a potty mouth,
Speaker 1: for sure, but you don't like ray your kids with,
Speaker 1: you know, flinging f bombs all day long. Chloe really
Speaker 1: has this little sassy personality that can really get under
Speaker 1: What do you think that comes from is it another
Speaker 1: manifestation of the one who least really wants to be
Speaker 1: there Because she's the most private, That's how she is.
Speaker 1: She's very salty, like pretzel salty. When you've dealt with
Speaker 1: some of the most painful moments, real scandal for one
Speaker 1: of the girls, that was really, really tough. And you
Speaker 1: and I remember we spoke. I know you called me.
Speaker 1: I remember I called you and I said to you,
Speaker 1: remember to tell her Kim that it's not like she
Speaker 1: was caught on tape counterfeiting money, beating a child, robbing
Speaker 1: a bank, stealing a person, a homeless person. She was
Speaker 1: caught on tape doing something that everybody does all day long,
Speaker 1: if they had their way. It was done like it's
Speaker 1: an unhealthy practice. How did you help her get through that?
Speaker 1: And how do you help your kids get through because
Speaker 1: there's still young people. Kim got through that bad time
Speaker 1: with her faith. She did something that she learned from us.
Speaker 1: Don't ever, ever, ever, ever do something like that again.
Speaker 1: Were you wanted him from the beginning? Did you know?
Speaker 1: Did you have a sensity? You know what? I focused
Speaker 1: my energy on her and just helping her through a
Speaker 1: bad time. But here's the thing, Kim is a survivor.
Speaker 1: Kim landed on her feet, and that's what I admire
Speaker 1: about her, because she didn't let the naysayers and the negative,
Speaker 1: you know, nasty comments get her down. But it taught
Speaker 1: a couple of things. You asked about the younger girls,
Speaker 1: and I think it taught them a very good lesson.
Speaker 1: The biggest lesson is obviously, don't ever do something like that.
Speaker 1: But better than that, you always have your family. That's
Speaker 1: the bottom line for us, no matter what is we
Speaker 1: love each other so much. You can do something that's
Speaker 1: negative and still come home and I'm going to wrap
Speaker 1: my arms around them no matter what. Even though I
Speaker 1: know that you are very close your family in this
Speaker 1: incredible way, all these crazy menu of things you guys
Speaker 1: have been through together on camera, camera has actually made
Speaker 1: you even closer, is true? This experience has made your
Speaker 1: family a close family even closer. Just shows that videotape
Speaker 1: can be your friend. I feel unbelievably lucky to have
Speaker 1: had these cameras capture the last six years of my
Speaker 1: life the best home movies. Sometimes I look back on
Speaker 1: Chloe and Lamar's wedding that I planned in nine days,
Speaker 1: and I cry every time I had worked my whole
Speaker 1: life raising my kids. They're my life. Chris Kardashian Jenner.
Speaker 1: She calls herself the momager of her plan. They recently
Speaker 1: finished season six of Keeping Up with the Kardashians. She's
Speaker 1: hoping for twenty six. The Kardashians continue to find new
Speaker 1: ways to make the most of the spotlight. Just seventy
Speaker 1: two days into her new marriage, Kim Kardashian filed for divorce.
Speaker 1: Now let's try that word association again, Kardashian. See, I'm
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing, m