Kim Kardashian forgives thieves who caused 'pure terror and panic'

Kim Kardashian arrived at a Parisian courthouse this spring decked out in diamonds. For hours she stood, testifying mere feet away from the men who, nine years ago, robbed her at gunpoint, bound her feet and hands with zip ties and duct tape and made off with an estimated $10 million of jewelry. For her court appearance, Kardashian ignored warnings against statement baubles, accessorizing a black skirt suit with a 22-carat ring on her right hand, earrings, ear cuffs and a necklace designer Samer Halimeh New York revealed cost $3 million.

Cameras were not allowed in the courtroom on May 13, 2025, when Kardashian recounted the 2016 robbery. But her family’s Hulu series "The Kardashians" (releasing new episodes Thursdays) captured the reality star and her accompanying momager, Kris Jenner, before and after on its Dec. 4 episode.

“Should we rethink this?” Jenner suggests softly while Kardashian is getting ready to testify. The prosecutor wanted Kardashian to leave her flashy jewels behind, but Kardashian refused. “They’re not going to take my power,” she tells her mom. “I want to be who I want to be, and I feel like they took that away from me for so long.”

In October 2016, the group of thieves entered the Parisian apartment where Kardashian was staying with her older sister Kourtney, Kim's former assistant Stephanie Shepherd, and her childhood friend, stylist Simone Harouche. Kourtney and Shepherd went out, with the security, leaving Kim and Harouche alone.

“I was being myself and you tried to literally rob me of that,” Kim says. The SKIMS founder confesses that for years she couldn’t even think of wearing diamonds. “I want to taunt the f--- out of these losers. I want to wear whatever the f--- I want to wear.”

Kim, known as the calm sister, tells producers that testifying in front of her assailants didn’t rattle her nerves. “This was less than 10 minutes of my life,” she says. “I’ve lived an amazing life! I don’t know, that’s always given me a little bit of peace, just to know, what was it eight, nine minutes of pure terror and panic? (They) aren’t going to ruin me.”

The night of the robbery: Kim Kardashian repeatedly asked the concierge, ‘Are we going to die?’

Kim details the minutes of terror in the episode. She says in the early hours of the morning, the burglars barged into the apartment disguised as police while holding the building’s concierge at gunpoint.

“I was so confused,” Kim recalls. “I was like, ‘What’s happening? What’s happening? Are we going to die? I just kept saying that to (the concierge), ‘Are we going to die?’”

Kim, wearing only a robe at the time, says she feared she would be sexually assaulted. “At one point, (a thief) grabbed my feet and pulled me towards the bed, and I thought to myself, ‘OK, he’s going to rape you, and this is it,’” she recalls. “And I braced myself and was like, ‘OK.’”

“When I realized they weren’t going to rape me, they were just tying me up, that’s when I thought I was going to die because he had put tape over my face – over my mouth and over my eyes,” she adds. “So I think that uncertainty of what’s going to happen was just the most terrifying feeling.”

Kim says she pleaded with the robbers to spare her life for the sake of the four children she shares with ex-husband Ye, formerly Kanye West. She remembers one of the thieves “screaming in excitement” when he found her jewelry. When they left, Kim ran down the stairs and screamed for Harouche, who’d texted Kourtney for help after hearing the intruders.

Kim is moved in court to ‘forgive all of them’

Kim emphasizes how the experience changed her life “for the better.” It pulled into focus “what I value in life, the things that matter to me, what’s important to me,” she says.

Her younger sister Khloé, who was not on the 2016 trip, says Kim's prioritization “of material things prior to the robbery were on an all-time high,” but after the robbery she reassessed. “She still has everything that matters,” says Khloé.

Kim says that during her courtroom appearance the judge read a letter that defendant Aomar Ait Khedache had written to her in 2017 that she hadn’t read. In it he expressed regret for his actions and acknowledged how he traumatized her.

“And then I was like hysterically crying,” Kim says. She finds the gesture “very noble” and says she told him in court, “I forgive you. Thank you for your letter.”

Kim says during the robbery, he tried repeatedly to relay that if she stayed quiet she’d survive. “It was like the glimmer that made me feel like it might be OK,” Kardashian says.

Kim says in court she told thief Yunice Abbas that she found the book he co-authored, “I Kidnapped Kim Kardashian,” to be in poor taste.

“‘First you come in here and take all my stuff and then you want to profit even more,’” she told him. “Then he made a statement, and I didn’t turn around. Then at the end, I was like, ‘You know what, I appreciate all of their statements, and I forgive all of them.’”