Kim Kardashian has told a court she feared she would be raped and killed during an armed robbery in Paris nearly 10 years ago.
The 44-year-old was tearful as she told the judge: “I was certain he was going to rape me.”
“I absolutely did think I was going to die,” she added.
“I said a prayer for my family, and for my sister who would walk in [and find me] and that they would have an OK life after what they saw.”
Kardashian told the court how one of the robbers pulled her across the bed, exposing her naked body under her hotel robe as he tied her up.
In a bizarre turn of events in the courtroom, three of the defendants offered messages to Kardashian – two in person and one via a written note. Kardashian had no knowledge of the letter until it was read in court and she tearfully said she forgave one of the robbers.
The men are accused of robbing her at gunpoint in a hotel in October 2016.
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Kardashian arrived at court to confront the alleged robbers earlier in the day.
Wearing a black skirt suit, sunglasses, and with her hair pulled back into a chignon, Kardashian walked up the steps accompanied by her mother Kris and a large entourage.
She began by telling the court of her love for Paris, calling it a “magical place,” before becoming tearful when describing the robbery, and talking of her “confusion” when two men entered her room dressed as police officers, accompanied by the handcuffed concierge.
“I had fallen asleep naked with a robe on, I was flustered,” she told the court.
‘From fatherly to aggressive’
Describing the man who tied her up, who she says was “smaller and stockier” than the second man with the gun, Kardashian said: “I feel like because the guy who tied me up could see how frantic I was, at that moment he felt like a father… It felt like he wanted me to know that I’d be OK if I just shut up.”
She tells the court: “I kept telling them I have babies and I need to get home to my babies.”
But, after the men began arguing in French, the previously “fatherly” man went from saying she’d be OK, “to aggressively grabbing my naked body”.
Asked by the judge if she was hit at any point, Kardashian said: “No, I was not hit. I was picked up and dragged and dropped on the hard floor, but I was not hit.” She later confirms she was dragged by her arms, with both her ankles and wrists bound together, and with a gun held towards her neck.
Police say the men escaped on bicycles, with around $9m of jewellery, including a $4m engagement ring from Kardashian’s then-husband Kanye West. Most of the jewellery was never recovered.
‘Your forgiveness is the sun – I’ll be forever grateful’
During her evidence, the judge read a statement to Kardashian written by one of the defendants, Aomar Ait Khedache, 68, nicknamed “Old Omar” – in which he said he “regretted” his actions and had been touched by his conscience. He has so far communicated in court only via handwritten notes, saying he’s too unwell to talk.
He’s previously admitted to participating in the heist but denies the prosecution’s accusation that he was the ringleader.
When asked by the judge if she had a response, Kardashian said: “I’m obviously emotional about it, this experience changed my life and it changed my family’s life”.
Currently in training to be a lawyer, and a vocal criminal justice reform advocate, she said: “I have always believed in second chances… I try to have empathy always.”
She went on: “I do appreciate the letter, I forgive you for what has taken place, but it doesn’t change the emotion and the feelings and the trauma the way my life is forever changed.” She thanked him for his letter.
Ait Khedache’s lawyer shared his response to Kardashian’s words, saying: “This forgiveness is a sun that comes to illuminate me, thank you.” He added, I’ll be grateful to you forever”.
The judge then spoke to two defendants in the courtroom, starting with Yunice Abbas, 71, who has previously admitted his part in the heist.
Abbas stood and spoke directly to Kardashian, his right hand shaking from Parkinson’s as he talked, asking for “forgiveness” and saying he too had “regret” for what he did.
In 2021, Abbas wrote a book titled I Kidnapped Kim Kardashian, but the court has ruled he would not financially benefit from its sale.
A third defendant, Didier Dubreucq, 69, dubbed “blue eyes” by French press, also briefly spoke and offered a few contrite words, saying, “I am very sorry about what happened to you”, adding, ” I empathise with your pain”.
‘A sound I had never heard – terror’
Earlier on Tuesday, in Paris’s central criminal court, Kardashian’s stylist Simone Harouche described the moment she was woken by the US star’s screams of terror and feared she had been “raped or violated”.
Ms Harouche, 45, who says she has worked for Kardashian for many years and has been friends with her since she was 12, told the court she was woken by “a sound I had never heard from Kim… It was terror”.
Sleeping in a separate apartment, on the next floor down from Kardashian’s, she went on: “What I heard specifically was [Kim saying], ‘I have babies and I need to live – that is what she kept saying… Take everything. I need to live'”.
She told the judge: “When I realised something terrible was going on upstairs and I realised it was not friends [in Kim’s room], I started looking for my telephone and I started looking for something to help save mine and Kim’s life.”
She went on to lock herself in her bathroom and hide in her shower, where she called Kardashian’s sister Kourtney and texted her security guard, Pascal Duvier, telling them, “Something is very wrong… Kim is upstairs with men and we need help.”
She says minutes later, Kardashian “hopped” into her room, explaining: “To see my friend with her feet taped and a very light robe with nothing under, and all messed up and pulled, I thought she could have been raped or very violated.”
She said she removed the tape from Kardashian’s feet, and her friend was “beside herself”, adding, “I’ve never seen her like that before. She was screaming, ‘We need to get out, what do we do if they come back? We need to jump from the first floor, we need to get out'”.
Later, when questioned by the lawyer of one of the defendants on why she did not come out of the bathroom, she said: “I’m the kind of person to hide, [Kardashian’s] the kind of person to take care of other people.”
‘Just because a woman wears jewellery, doesn’t make her a target’
When asked by the judge whether she or Kardashian had believed at the time that wearing and sharing images of such expensive jewellery would be a risk, Ms Harouche says: “Just because a woman wears jewellery doesn’t make her a target. That’s like saying because a woman wears a short skirt she deserves to be raped”.
She went on to say: “I think that that moment changed [Kardashian’s] life forever… In terms of security, she doesn’t go alone to places anymore.”
Read more: Everything you need to know about the Paris trial
Following the robbery, Ms Harouche says she quit her job as a stylist as the experience “made me fearful of all the things that could happen to celebrities, and being around them”.
Asking for ‘forgiveness’
At the end of her time in the witness stand, the judge attempted to play a video message from one of the defendants, Yunice Abbas.
A tech issue meant the message would not play, so instead, the judge read out the statement from Mr Abbas, asking for “forgiveness” for his actions. When asked by the judge if she had a reaction to the apology, Ms Harouche answered, “No”.
The trial, which is being held in front of three judges and six jury members, is due to conclude at the end of this week.
