This is Kris Jenner’s portrait from The Hollywood Reporter’s roundtable for reality TV that consisted of Kris, Leah Remini, RuPaul, SallyAnn Salsano and W. Kamau Bell. CB pointed out that Kris’ was the only one to be photographed in black and white, probably at her insistence. I’m just shocked they were able to capture her image on film. CB wrote about Leah’s comments and Corey is reporting on RuPaul but I am going to talk about Kris Jenner, which is not something I ever thought I would say. For all the reasons to attack Kris, she did set out to establish this weird reality empire and she’s done it. She turned her family’s existence into a cash cow that refuses to be put out to pasture. So THR wanted to know, why? Why can’t we get rid of do the Kardashians enjoy such celebrity longevity? According to Kris, because we see ourselves in them.

Why do you think your respective shows are striking a chord, and what does their success say about our culture today?
KJ:I think the reason we became something of a phenomenon is because there are so many of us. Everybody can relate to somebody in my family, whether you’re 7 or you’re 107. And people just got emotionally attached and invested in seeing this family evolve: They’re getting married, getting divorced, having babies.

Kris, you brought your younger daughters into this world early on. How did you prepare them?
KJ: We decided as a family that if we’re going to do this, we would just show everything. And one of the best decisions I made not only as a producer of the show but as one of the stars of the show was to say, “We’re not going to remove anything.” With that philosophy, I told the kids, “Don’t get on the internet.” Ryan Seacrest, my producing partner, had told [my daughter] Kim about this little thing called Twitter, which she might be interested in. There wasn’t Instagram or Snapchat or any of this other stuff then. Now, it’s so heightened and, you know, haters are gonna hate. You expect it now.

As a mother, how do you tell your daughters to tune that out?
KJ: Kim leads the pack, and she’s the queen of thick skin. She counsels everybody else. So if something happens in the family, she’s the first one you call. “What should I do? How should I handle this?” But it’s my grandchildren who I worry about because I have six of them; the oldest just turned 7, and my youngest is 6 months old, and they don’t have a choice. And I worry, I do, because it is such a bullying environment.

[The Hollywood Reporter]

I have So.Many.Comments. Let’s start with the obvious, I do not relate to any one of the Kardashian/Jenner Klan. I can’t even pick one part of their personalities to which I could relate, with the only exception possibly being that I do love to travel. But even then, I rarely travel with my extended family and I choose very different activities. But Kris’ comments about how the family made the decision and how she worries about her grandkids? She doesn’t live in this dimension, does she? THR specifically asked about her younger daughters, Kendall and Kylie, who were 12 and 9 when the show started. There’s a reason parents still get to make decisions for kids at that age. Also, those decisions are supposed to be for the child’s welfare, not assigned a dollar value. And of course, she worries about her grandkids getting bullied, I honestly don’t doubt that but, uhm, Kris – how do you think they’re going to get in that line of fire?

The other questions asked of Kris were about Kim’s Paris robbery and how it has affected the family. She claimed that the videographers on hand when they arrived home were all Kayne’s doing. She also said that “they” made the decision to have Kim tell her story because, “So many people felt like they deserved the explanation of what happened because they had, for the last decade, followed every moment of her life.” Even if this was the actual reason they aired that, people may have felt they deserved an explanation, but they were not owed one. And Kris damn well knows this. Kris was also asked if her daughter’s traumatic event gave her, “pause about continuing with this show?” Without hesitation, Kris responded,“No.” Although she did add that now, if they go to Disneyland, they don’t post their photos with Dumbo until after they get home. Oh sure, I can totally relate.

Photo credit: The Hollywood Reporter and WENN Photos