Kim Kardashian made one of her most shocking announcements yet as the cover star for Vogue’s May 2019 issue: She’s studying to become a lawyer.
Vogue’s Jonathan Van Meter revealed the reality TV star is currently doing a four-year apprenticeship with a law firm in San Francisco and plans to take the bar in 2022.
Though the announcement might not be all that shocking to fans who know of Kardashian’s love of detective work or her recent advocacy for criminal justice reform, the 38-year-old says she thought “long and hard” about her decision to pursue law.
It all started with visiting President Donald Trump at the White House to advocate for clemency for Alice Johnson, a grandmother who received a life sentence for a first-time, nonviolent drug offense.
“The White House called me to advise to help change the system of clemency,” Kardashian told Vogue. “And I’m sitting in the Roosevelt Room with, like, a judge who had sentenced criminals and a lot of really powerful people and I just sat there, like, Oh, shit. I need to know more.”
She said that while she had her points down about the case, the lawyers with her could present facts ― something she wanted to be able to do, too.
“I’ve always known my role, but I just felt like I wanted to be able to fight for people who have paid their dues to society,” the star added. “I just felt like the system could be so different, and I wanted to fight to fix it, and if I knew more, I could do more.”
Trump later granted Johnson clemency. Van Jones, a CNN commentator and activist, told Vogue that it all boiled down to Kardashian’s help and ability to explain the situation to the president.
“I was in the Oval Office with Kim and Ivanka and Jared and the president, and I watched with my own eyes Trump confess to having tremendous fears of letting somebody out of prison and that person going and doing something terrible, and the impact that that would have on his political prospects,” Jones said.
“He was visibly nervous about it,” the commenter and activist added. “And I watched Kim Kardashian unleash the most effective, emotionally intelligent intervention that I’ve ever seen in American politics.”
Jones added that Kardashian, whose father was O.J. Simpson’s defense attorney Robert Kardashian, is moving further away from the preconceived notion many have of her.
“This is the daughter of an accomplished attorney and the mother of three black kids who is using her full power to make a difference on a tough issue and is shockingly good at it,” he said.
Considering the reality star never graduated from college and won’t be going to law school, she has a few more steps ahead of her before taking the bar. She must take a “baby bar” beforehand, in addition to “reading the law” and completing her apprenticeship.
“First year of law school, you have to cover three subjects: criminal law, torts, and contracts,” she said. “To me, torts is the most confusing, contracts the most boring, and crim law I can do in my sleep. Took my first test, I got a 100. Super easy for me.”
“The reading is what really gets me,” she added. “It’s so time-consuming. The concepts I grasp in two seconds.”
Head to Vogue to read more of Kardashian’s interview. Look for the issue on newsstands in New York and Los Angeles on April 16 and nationwide April 23.