Khloe Kardashian didn’t initially want cameras keeping up with her life.
In fact, she and Kourtney Kardashian Barker were both against doing Keeping Up With The Kardashians in the early 2000s—that is until Kris Jenner stepped in with a sneaky strategy to get her daughters onboard.
“I never was like, ‘Gosh, I gotta be famous. I need to be on TV,’” Khloe explained on the April 7 episode of The Morgan Stewart Show podcast. “Kourt and I, when we were approached to do the show by my mom and Kim [Kardashian], we said, ‘No, we're not doing this show.’”
At the time, Khloe and Kourtney had just opened Dash, their fashion boutique in Calabasas, and the duo were more focused on running their business. However, Kris saw the situation differently.
“How my mom conned us into doing it was, she said, ‘Think of it as a commercial for the store,’” Khloe recalled. “Cause all we wanted to do [was focus on the store].”
“We had no employees. It was just me and Kourt,” the 41-year-old continued. “We had a kids’ store and the women's store. And she was at the kids’ store; I was at the women's store. We did everything—the cleaning, the taxes, the steaming of the clothes. We had not one employee. We didn't know what the f--k we were doing.”
Which is partly why adding in a TV series on top initially seemed like too much. But once Kris got her daughters to sign on, the rest is, as they say, history.
Keeping Up With The Kardashians, which premiered on E! in October 2007 and followed the Kardashian-Jenner family in their daily lives, went on to run for 20 seasons. It also several spinoffs including Kourtney and Kim Take Miami, Kourtney and Khloé Take The Hamptons, Dash Dolls, and Life of Kylie.
In 2021, the show came to an end—but it wasn’t long before the Kardashian family was back on screens with their Hulu series, The Kardashians, which recently aired its seventh season.
And while she may have had a vision back in the early aughts, for Kris—who also serves as an executive producer on Keeping Up With The Kardashians and The Kardashians—her family’s reality TV success is something she still can’t wrap her head around.
“We’re filming, right now, season 28, if you add them all up,” she told Vanity Fair on the red carpet of their Oscars party in March. “The best one was the first one, and the other best one is the one we’re doing right now. Everything in the middle is just a blessing.”
“I have the best home movies in the world,” the 70-year-old added. “We thought we would do it and see what happens and before we even finished half of the first season, they picked up for season two, so we got so lucky and we loved doing it.”
The momager also made it clear that a spinoff focused on her life is definitely not in the cards.
“I’ll leave that to the kids at this point,” she said. “I love doing what I’m doing. We love doing the show, but I’ll leave that to the rest of them for a bit.”
For a look back at some of the most memorable Keeping Up With The Kardashians moments, keep reading…
Who can forget the time Khloe Kardashian was on her way to jail, and Kim Kardashian couldn't stop taking selfies. "Kim, would you stop taking pictures of yourself? Your sister's going to jail," Kris Jenner famously said.
Kris crashing Kim's sexy pole dancing class: classic!
When Khloe needed to get her ladyparts waxed for then-husband Lamar Odom, there was only one woman for the job—Kourtney Kardashian. Doesn't get more ride or die than that.
This was the episode where the world learned exactly what happens when you're rude to Kim. Kim hit Khloe with her handbag over and over again while saying, "Don't be f--king rude!" Lesson learned.
We died laughing when Khloe wouldn't let Kris in the car and Kris couldn't hold it any longer! When you gotta go, you gotta go.
The girls go to a winery in Napa, and Kris has a little to much to drink. While Kourtney and Khloe are sitting in the car Facetiming with French Montana, Kris greets him with a, "Hello, mother f--ker!"
Kylie Jenner finally has her own place! But no home is truly broken in until your sisters have a guacamole food fight at the dinner table.
Yes, there is a meaning behind Scott Disick's social media handle. Back in 2012, Kourtney's now-ex was officially dubbed a Lord and became London royalty right before our eyes.
Nothing was funnier than watching Kourtney struggle to have a conversation with Khloe while her mouth was completely numb from her trip to the dentist.
Scott had been known to pull a few pranks in his day, but the time he prank called Kris pretending to be Todd Kraines was legendary. "Auntie Kris, it's me! It's Todd Kraines!" will go down in history as our favorite quote ever.
In perhaps the most quotable Kardashian moment, Kim crying over her lost diamond earring was tragic, but Kourtney was there to add a little perspective: "Kim, there's people that are dying."
When Kris gifted Kylie this sweet baby pig back in 2016, the youngest Kardashian-Jenner memorably mistook it for the farm animal she really wanted. "Is that a chicken?" she shrieked once the housewarming present was unveiled. Upon closer examination, she realized her error.