During an interview with Time published on Thursday, Kim Kardashian revealed she changed her name shortly before she and her family achieved reality TV fame with Keeping Up With the Kardashians.
“I used to always go by Kimberly, until we signed on to do the reality show. And when I looked at my chyron, Kimberly Kardashian, I said, ‘I think that’s so long for people to say.’ And like, ‘Let’s just shorten it to Kim,'” the Kardashian star said.
“And it’s so weird, because all my friends from high school and growing up, and my dad, everyone calls me Kimberly.”
But that’s not all that the Skims founder shared during the interview. Along with that, Kim also claimed that she was the one who convinced her family to sign on for Keeping Up With the Kardashians 20 years ago.
“I mean, the whole reason we wanted to start our own show was to bring attention to our DASH store – at least that’s how I was able to get my sisters to sign on,” she explained. “I let them know that it’ll bring such great promotion to our store.”
“And they were in once they heard that.”
Keeping Up With the Kardashians premiered in 2007 on Hulu until its conclusion in 2021, which gave an inside look at the Kardashian family. Since then, The Kardashians, a continuation of its predecessor, launched on Hulu in 2022.
Both shows follow Kirs Jenner, the family’s momager, along with Kim Kardashian and her sisters, Kourtney, Khloe, Kendall, and Kylie, along with brother Rob. However, according to Kim, she’s the mastermind behind the family’s reality TV empire.
“I think I was the one who convinced everyone for sure. I really wanted it,” Kim told Time. “I really wanted to do a reality show since the day MTV’s The Real World came out, and I watched it with my best friend.”
“I looked at her and I told her, ‘That’s what I’m going to do.’ And she said, ‘I’ll be your manager.’ I think we were 11,” Kim added.
While the first original series ended in 2021, fans of the family can keep up with the Jenner-Kardashian family by watching Hulu’s The Kardashians.