Why everyone should listen to Kim Kardashian talk about being robbed

Kim tearfully recounts the events of that night for the first time and how she thought she was going to be raped and killed.

“...Then he duct tapes my face. I think, like, my mouth, to get me to, like, not yell or anything. And then he, like, grabs my legs, and I wasn't, you know, I had no clothes on under. So, he pulled me towards him at like the front of the bed and I thought, like, ‘Okay, this is the moment they're going to rape me,’” Kim says in the clip.

Here’s a longer clip from the show where the family talks about the robbery at 0:52.

It’s an extremely emotional clip and I cried while watching it. Being in a situation where you could possibly lose your life or be sexually violated is one of the most horrible things a person can go through.

Kim took to Twitter when the show aired to share some thoughts with her fans.

As someone who has had to go through big, traumatic experiences as well, I feel for Kim and her family and wasn’t surprised by her 3 month social media hiatus after the incident. What did surprise me was the uncalled for backlash Kim got afterwards.

In the clip above, Kim mentions how Howard Stern says she should be jailed if the robbery was a fake.

Also, right after the robbery, French Twitter went in on Kim.

And now, there are people saying that all of this is just so she can get more ratings for her reality show.

Kim is being very brave for opening up about this. It’s hard enough to deal with traumatic events and the post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that comes with them, but doing it in the limelight with the world calling you a liar must be incredibly difficult.  

It's incredibly cynical to immediately assume she did this to boost her ratings and her fame. Instead I think she chose to speak about it because it mattered. She didn’t talk about all the money she’d lost or the way the rag mags talked about her afterwards.

She spoke about her family, her fear of dying and her concern for her sister finding her dead body. Take a moment to think about it. Take a moment to empathise with her.

For those criticising Kim for only speaking up about it now, here’s the thing: PTSD isn’t something that you deal with in the span of a night.

It takes months, and even years for someone to come to terms with traumatic events. The fact that she’s choosing to share this on a huge platform with her fans doesn’t mean she’s doing this for the money, but because she knows that there are many women in the world who have gone through what she has.

Using her voice to talk about her own experience is a way to connect with and validate other people’s experiences too, especially considering that people these days are so easily inclined to blame the victim instead.

If something like this can happen to the super famous Kim, then it validates victims of violent crime who have no platform to speak from, who cannot get back at their attackers by making their voices heard. It makes being a victim less shameful and gives power back to the voiceless.

So many people look up to Kim, but think they cannot be as glamourous, as infallible, but talking about this experience has not only made her seem more real to her fans, it's also given her a humanity that she didn't quite have before.

Kim’s change in her approach to social media has also shown how she’s grown from this experience. Kim’s comeback was filled with images of her family, letting the public know that she and Kanye are strong and that her focus is on her husband and children.

Kim Kardashian might not be my favourite person, but I applaud her for having the guts to speak out about this trying experience.