Nearly nine years have passed since Kim Kardashian was allegedly attacked and held at gunpoint in her Paris hotel room while intruders stole millions of dollars worth of jewelry. Now, the SKIMS founder is set to face the alleged gunmen during her testimony in a Paris courtroom on Tuesday.
“We can confirm that Ms. Kardashian will be testifying in person at the upcoming French criminal trial involving the 2016 incident in which she was bound and robbed at gunpoint by a number of masked assailants,” Kardashian’s attorney, Michael Rhodes, said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “At this time, Ms. Kardashian is preserving her testimony for the Court and jury and does not wish to elaborate further on it at this stage.”
“She has tremendous appreciation and admiration for the French judicial system and has been treated with great respect by the French authorities. She wishes for the trial to proceed in an orderly fashion in accordance with French law and with respect for all parties to the case.”
KIM KARDASHIAN’S FAME COULD SWAY JURY IN PARIS ROBBERY TRIAL AGAINST ‘GRANDPA ROBBERS’: EXPERT
Kardashian, 44, is set to testify in a monthlong trial against a group known as the “grandpa robbers” due to their age. More than 17 people were arrested as suspects in connection to the case after investigators found trace amounts of DNA on plastic bands tied around Kardashian’s wrists. The case was finally ordered to go on trial in 2021 with 12 people charged.
Ten people are being tried, with five facing armed robbery and kidnapping charges. The other suspects are charged with being accomplices to the heist or unauthorized possession of a weapon, according to Reuters.
“It was the scariest thing I’ve ever been through in my entire life,” Kardashian said during an episode of “Felony Files” in 2019. “Just thinking that, you know, you’re about to die. … You’re bracing yourself for the moment they’re going to shoot you and kill you. That 10 minutes really changed my whole life. “
On Oct. 3, 2016, the intruders allegedly disguised themselves as police officers with ski masks as they broke into her room at the No Address Hotel, tied up the reality star and placed her in the bathtub while they stole various jewelry pieces, including her $4 million engagement ring from then-husband Kanye West.
Kardashian, who was in town for Fashion Week with her sisters, Kourtney Kardashian and Kendall Jenner, and mother Kris Jenner, had posted on social media that she was home alone while her family went out to explore Paris.
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“I was Snapchatting that I was home and that everyone was going out,” Kim said on a 2017 episode of “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.”
While lying in bed, Kardashian heard footsteps approaching her door and, after calling out for her sisters, she realized something was wrong.
“Then at that moment when there wasn’t an answer, my heart started to get really tense,” Kardashian said in a confessional during the episode. “Like your stomach just kind of knots up, and you’re like, ‘OK, what’s going on? What’s going on?’ I knew something wasn’t quite right.’”
“They dragged me out onto the hallway on top of the stairs. That’s when I saw the gun clear, like clear as day. I was kind of looking at the gun, looking down back at the stairs.”
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“Am I going to run down the stairs and either be shot in the back? It makes me so upset to think about it,” she said. “Either they’re going to shoot me in the back, or if I make it, and they don’t, if the elevator does not open in time, or the stairs are locked, then like I’m f—-d. There’s no way out.”
During an appearance on “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction” with David Letterman in 2020, Kardashian said she mentally “prepared” herself for the worst.
“He grabbed me and pulled me towards him,” Kardashian said of her attacker. “But I wasn’t wearing anything underneath [my robe], so I was like, ‘OK, this is the time, I’m going to get raped, like, just deal, it’s going to happen, like, just prepare yourself.’ So I did, and then – I don’t know why I’m crying, I’ve talked about this before – but then he tied me up with handcuffs and zip ties, and then duct tape, and then duct-taped my mouth and my eyes.”
“I saw he found my whole jewelry box and held it up, like, ‘Aha!’ You know, like, ‘We got it.’ But I kept on looking at the concierge [who’d been forced to unlock her door at gunpoint] because I didn’t know who he was, and I’m like, ‘What is happening? Are we going to die? Just tell them I have children, I have babies, I have a husband, I have a family, like I have to get home! Tell them to take anything. I’ll never say I saw them, like, take everything!’”
The aftermath of the robbery was difficult, but talking about it proved to be “therapeutic” for Kardashian.
“When we started filming again and getting up and running, you know, obviously, Kim was around because we all practically live together on the street,” mom Kris Jenner told Ellen DeGeneres in 2017. “And we started filming and what was coming out of that was very therapeutic for her, I think, to just explain to us and walk us through.”
“She just thinks that it might bring some awareness,” she continued. “You know, it’s changed the way we live our lives and just the way we take care of our kids and our grandchildren. So it’s been a process.”
Kardashian didn’t return to Paris for nearly two years after the alleged attack.
“I have so many special memories in Paris,” she said during an episode of her show in 2018. “I hope that this trip will just be so good that I can start to remember all the magical things about Paris and why Kanye and I fell in love with it.”
In 2017, Kardashian told DeGeneres that she believes the robbery happened to “teach” her something.
“I know this sounds crazy, but I know that was meant to happen to me,” she told the daytime talk show host. “I am such a different person. … I really feel like things happen in your life to teach you things, and this was like – it was probably no secret, you see it on the show, us being flashy, I was definitely materialistic before. Not that there’s anything bad with having things and working hard to get those things, and I’m really proud of everyone around me that’s successful. But I’m so happy that my kids get this me and that this is how I’m raising my kids, because I just don’t care about that stuff anymore.”
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Fox News Digital’s Tracy Wright contributed to this post.
