Kim Kardashian testifies in 2016 Paris jewelry heist trial: 'I absolutely did think I was going to die'

Yahoo

14-05-2025

Kim Kardashian testified on Tuesday that she thought she would be raped — and didn't think she would survive — during the jewelry heist in her Paris hotel room in 2016.
The trial started on April 28 and is expected to conclude by May 23. A group of 10 suspects, dubbed the 'grandpa robbers' because they are all primarily in their 60s and 70s, are standing trial on charges of armed robbery, membership in a criminal gang and kidnapping.
Kardashian was robbed at gunpoint in October 2016 while staying at the No Address Hotel during Paris Fashion Week. Two masked men gained access to Kardashian's room, where they allegedly tied her up and held her hostage as they stole more than $10 million in jewelry. Among the stolen items was Kardashian's $4 million engagement ring from then-husband Kanye West.
In the early hours of Oct. 3, 2016, Kardashian returned to her Paris hotel with sister Kourtney Kardashian and stylist Simone Harouche after attending a private dinner. Kourtney and Kardashian's assistant, Stephanie Shepherd, changed clothes, as they had planned on going out that night. Kardashian, however, chose not to join them, instead deciding to stay in. Kardashian had told her bodyguard, Pascal Duvier, to join Kourtney and their half-sister Kendall Jenner while they were out clubbing.
It was during this time alone that Kardashian was robbed.
During emotional testimony in a Paris court on Tuesday, Kardashian recalled the details surrounding the robbery that 'changed everything' for her.
According to the reality star, who was wearing a bathrobe at the time of the robbery, she 'was very confused' when robbers dressed as police officers entered her hotel room. She recognized the handcuffed man with them to be the concierge from downstairs.
'I said to the concierge, 'I have babies, tell them, I just have to make it home,'' she recalled for the court.
When asked by Judge David De Pas whether she thought she was going to die that night, Kardashian replied, 'I absolutely did think I was going to die.'
At one point, one of the suspects pulled Kardashian toward him on the bed.
'I'm naked, and my everything is exposed. I was sure that I was going to be raped,' she said, according to an NBC News report.
Kardashian then clarified that she was not assaulted. However, she said, she was 'grabbed and dragged into the other room and dropped onto the floor.' The gun, she added, was 'pointed towards me to get me to go from room to room, and then it was pointed to me when I was on my bed at the end.'
The Skims mogul said she prayed for her sister Kourtney and was fearful that she would return to the hotel room and 'that I would be dead on the bed, shot dead, and that she'd have this memory forever.'
After the robbers left, Kardashian said, she waited several minutes before trying to free herself. She was eventually able to get the hand tape off and find her friend Harouche, who was staying on the floor below. The reality star revealed that she hid outside on the balcony, fearing the robbers might return to kill them.
'I'm not sure, it was just an instinct,' she said. 'I didn't know what was in their mind, so I was not going to take any chances.'
One of the defendants, Aomar Ait Khedache, who is deaf and mute, provided a written statement. Khedache, known as 'Old Omar,' asked Kardashian for forgiveness.
'I do appreciate the letter,' she responded. 'I forgive you for what has taken place, but it doesn't change the emotion and the feelings and the trauma, the way my life is forever changed.'
Harouche also testified on Tuesday. She recalled going to sleep and then waking up to 'a very different sound' — it was Kardashian pleading for her life.
'To see my friend with her feet taped and her bathrobe, a very light robe with nothing under it, all messed up and pulled, I obviously thought she could have been raped or very violated,' she said, the Guardian reported. 'She was beside herself. I've never seen her like this before. She just was screaming and kept saying, 'We need to get out of here. We need help. What are we going to do if they come back? We may need to jump out the window or hide in the first floor.' … She was just thinking: 'How are we going to be safe? How are we going to survive?''
When asked if she felt Kardashian had called attention to herself by flaunting her wealth on social media, Harouche defended her childhood friend.
'Just because a woman wears jewelry, that doesn't make her a target. That's like saying because a woman wears a short skirt that she deserves to be raped,' she said, according to the Associated Press.
On Sept. 28 of that year, Kardashian landed in Paris by private jet with Shepherd and Duvier to attend Paris Fashion Week. The hotel at which the reality star planned on staying for the next six days was quickly made public knowledge, as photographers followed Kardashian's vehicle from the airport to the Hôtel de Pourtalès, also known as the No Address Hotel.
While alone in her hotel room in the early hours of Oct. 3, 2016, Kardashian heard a noise at her door, which prompted her to call Duvier at 2:56 a.m. The masked men allegedly forced the receptionist to open Kardashian's door with a key from the front desk. Kardashian said she saw two men holding police paraphernalia and had a handcuffed hotel receptionist with them. After gaining entry to her room, Kardashian said, the men pulled her out of bed.
'He grabbed me, and I was wearing a robe and I wasn't wearing anything under it,' Kardashian recalled to David Letterman in a 2020 interview. 'He grabbed me and pulled me toward him, but I wasn't wearing anything underneath. So I was like, 'OK, this is the time I'm going to get raped. Just deal, it's gonna happen. Just prepare yourself.' So I did … but then he tied me up with handcuffs and zip ties and duct tape.'
Kardashian said the men then held her at gunpoint before locking her in the bathroom and robbing her of more than $10 million in jewelry. They were in the hotel building for 49 minutes, according to a Vanity Fair report, before leaving the premises on their bicycles with the stolen jewelry.
'I just kept thinking about Kourtney,' Kardashian told Letterman. 'I kept on thinking she's gonna come home and I'm gonna be dead in the room, and she's gonna be traumatized for the rest of her life if she sees me.'
After managing to untie herself, Kardashian exited the bathroom and ran to the balcony, where she reportedly screamed for help.
In the hours leading up to the robbery, Kardashian, who has long shared her personal life on social media, was actively posting on Snapchat.
'I was Snapchatting that I was home and that everyone was going out,' she said on Keeping Up With the Kardashians in 2017. 'So I think they knew Pascal was out with Kourtney, and I was there by myself.'
Following the robbery, Kardashian said she no longer posts on social media in real time.
'I learned from a bad experience I had when I was robbed that people really knew my every move,' she said at the New York Times' DealBook conference in 2019. 'They knew what I had, they knew where I was, what I was doing, and that to me really changed the things that I post.'
Kardashian now waits until after she's left a location before posting about it online.
'I still want people to feel like they're on that journey with me,' she explained. 'But I might video something, then post it 30 minutes later when I've left the location, for more privacy.'
Among the suspects arrested in France in the months following the robbery is Khedache, 69, who had admitted to participating in the heist but denies claims that he was the operation's ringleader. Additional alleged robbers have been identified as Yunice Abbas, 71, who fled the scene on a bicycle, and Didier Dubreucq, 69, who has denied accusations that he was one of the robbers to enter Kardashian's room.
Abbas co-wrote and published a book in 2021 about the incident titled J'ai séquestré Kim Kardashian, which translates to "I kidnapped Kim Kardashian."
'Since she was throwing money away, I was there to collect it, and that was that,' Abbas told Vice in 2022. 'Guilty? No, I don't care. I don't care.'
France only uses juries during trials in the cour d'assises, the highest level criminal courts in the country that deal with serious, violent crimes. In France's judicial system, defendants don't enter formal pleas, and the maximum sentence for this trial is more than 20 years, NBC News reported. No television cameras will be allowed in the courtroom.
Ahead of the trial, Abbas told the Associated Press, "I will apologize. I mean it sincerely."
While 12 people were originally charged in the 2016 heist, only 10 are standing trial. One suspect has died, and another, Pierre Bouianere, 80, is unable to participate due to health issues and will instead be tried separately.