Kim Kardashian has spent years in the spotlight, but she recently revealed that she's willing to take the cameras away and entirely commit to one field — law.
The 42-year-old is on her way to becoming a lawyer, as she plans to take the bar exam in February 2025. In an interview at the TIME100 Summit on April 25, Kardashian spoke passionately about her upcoming career plans.
"I would be just as happy being an attorney full-time and doing that," she said in comparison to her life on the reality show "The Kardashians." "The journey just really opened up my eyes to so much … It gets overwhelming because there’s so much to be done."
The Skims founder added that she recently brought her sister, Khloe Kardashian, to visit prisons, which was “really eye-opening for her.”
“I would totally spend more time doing that — cameras, no cameras,” she said.
In 2019, Kardashian shared on Instagram that she was preparing to take the California bar exam.
California is one of the only states that doesn't require a candidate pursuing a law degree to go to law school. Since 2019, she's prepared for the exam by participating in an apprenticeship program under CNN commentator Van Jones and attorney Jessica Jackson, working with prisons on criminal justice reform.
Kardashian said she realized her passion for working with inmates after helping free Alice Marie Johnson, a 67-year-old woman who was sentenced by a Tennessee court to life in prison for a non-violent drug charge.
"When I met Alice, it felt like a fairly easy experience for me, when I know it shouldn’t be, to help get someone out," she said. "It takes 10-20 years to do what I did in six months. And I didn’t realize the fight at that time. To me, that was a few phone calls."
In 2018, Kardashian contacted the Trump family while former President Donald Trump was in office, lobbying on behalf of Johnson. A week after her meeting with the former head of state, Trump granted clemency to Johnson.
"President Trump did understand once he started to hear these stories instead of just seeing their cases," Kardashian said. "And he went in being so pro-death penalty and really hard on crime to opening up his heart and realizing that so many people are inside that don’t deserve to be and have completely rehabilitated themselves."
Kardashian explained that she believes her role in the criminal justice system is "storytelling," in order to change the minds of people who lack empathy for those incarcerated.
But she noted that she hasn't always held this mindset.
"I was so judgmental at the beginning of my journey and I was like, 'OK, nonviolent maybe drug offenses, I can do that. Anything with violence, I just can’t ever support that,' until I started to go to prisons and sit down with these men and women and hear their story and the awful things that have happened to them."
Some people confuse Kardashian's work for her not being "hard on crime," she said, which she explained is a misunderstanding.
"I think that there are a lot of people that are deserving to be (in prison) … but I believe that there just needs to be a completely different system," she said.
For Kardashian, she said her thoughts on advocacy and reform are rather straightforward.
"I personally don’t believe in the death penalty and I think that everyone deserves at least to have their case fully examined before they’re about to be executed," the reality star said. "It’s just really that simple."
Right now, Kardashian said she has a few goals related to her pursuit of a law degree: "Keep my head down, get as much work done as possible, get as many people out as possible."
"I always joke with my mom, who's my manager, Kim K is retiring and I'm just going to be an attorney. So I can go help my siblings," she joked.
