Kim Kardashian was already dreaming of reality TV at 12.
Years before her family became a television fixture, she told her childhood friend (also known as one of her "lifers") Allison Statter she planned to appear on MTV's "The Real World" and wanted the friend to be her manager, according to Jonathan Van Meter's new biography.
That early ambition is one of the details in "Citizen Kim: The Woman Who Created the Future," out now. Drawing on interviews with Kardashian, her family and longtime friends, the book revisits the relationships, traumas and private moments behind her public life.
Van Meter describes the book to USA TODAY as "an origin story." Along the way, he explores a teenage romance that helped shape Kardashian's future, when she was
robbed at gunpoint in Paris and the extravagance of her life with Kanye West.
Here are three of the book's standout revelations.
Kim Kardashian's Paris robbery came amid two break-ins at home
Kardashian's 2016 Paris robbery, during which she was bound and held at gunpoint while thieves stole millions of dollars in jewelry, came amid a series of security breaches detailed in the book.
Before the Paris attack, a group of young neighborhood boys had broken into her Los Angeles home to swim in the pool, according to Van Meter. Her sister Kourtney had urged her to stop posting her whereabouts online. West, her husband at the time, had also warned her against wearing her diamonds in public after a video was shared online showing Kim decked out in diamonds, the book says.
"Don't ever do that again – you're just looking to get robbed," Kanye said to Kim. "I'm flashy, but that's crazy even for me.'"
Then, when Kardashian returned to her Bel Air home after the Paris robbery, she discovered another burglary. Her bags and watches were gone. Her original engagement ring, however, remained.
"It was crazy how that happened at the same time – my bags were taken, my watches were taken. I came home and everything was gone. It was this feeling of, like, I couldn't win," Kardashian says in the book. "The universe didn't want me to have any material things."
The burglary at her home was never solved and the stolen belongings were not recovered, according to the biography.
Van Meter tells USA TODAY that the timing of the incidents is crucial to understanding their impact: "These three things happened in succession, and it profoundly changed her," he says.
"It's obviously what ignited the desire to backfill her life with purpose and meaning. It can't all just be about being famous and having diamonds," Van Meter says. "So I think that's where the criminal justice reform and law studies comes from."
The consequences extended to the rest of the family. Caitlyn Jenner tells Van Meter that Kardashian's robbery prompted a major increase in security spending by family members including sister Kylie.
"It was a big wake-up call," Jenner says in the book.
Kim Kardashian's first love introduced her to her future first husband
Kardashian's teenage romance with TJ Jackson, the son of Tito Jackson, began with a date at McDonald's and included conversations about getting married at Neverland Ranch, according to the biography.
Van Meter tells USA TODAY that Kardashian was 13 when they met and that their relationship lasted until she was 17. Jackson remains someone she remembers with affection.
"I can only hope that my daughters have something like TJ and I did when they're old enough to have a boyfriend," Kardashian says in the book.
Their relationship also brought her into the orbit of a future spouse. According to Van Meter, Jackson introduced Kardashian to music producer Damon Thomas when she was 14. Thomas, who was 10 years older than Kardashian, was working on music with Jackson and his brothers.
Kardashian later married Thomas at 19, eloping in Las Vegas in 2000.
Her bond with Jackson endured after their romance ended. The book recounts how, after his mother's murder, TJ even moved in with the Jenners. The foreclosure of his family's home meant their belongings were placed in storage but were eventually lost.
Years later, Kardashian received a call about photographs of herself that had been found. She realized the discovery included Jackson's belongings and helped return them to him.
"I'm slowly getting pieces of my life back," Jackson says in the book.
Van Meter says the former couple remain in touch, though he does not believe they regularly spend time together. "They really care about each other still," he tells USA TODAY.
Kanye West turned an unannounced house visit into a four-day stay
The biography also offers a glimpse of the expensive tastes and outsized gestures that characterized Kardashian's life with West.
According to Van Meter, West once arrived unannounced at a Malibu house designed by architect Tadao Ando, rang the buzzer and introduced himself.
When the owner hesitated, West invoked another famous name.
"If Elvis Presley came to your door and rang your buzzer, would you let him in? This is that," West said, according to the book.
Despite not being welcomed at first, Kanye still stayed for four days, setting up an office by the pool and taking meetings to get a feel for working in an Ando-designed home, Van Meter writes. The biography identifies it as the property Jay-Z later bought for $200 million.
The couple's own furnishings were similarly extravagant. Van Meter writes that Kardashian and West paid $1 million for a Jean Royère Polar Bear sofa.
Van Meter recalls how intertwined the couple's creative lives appeared when he spent time with Kardashian in 2019. They were collaborating on the business that would become Skims and sharing their projects with each other.
As their relationship unraveled ending in a 2022 divorce and Kardashian "ghosted" him for a year while concentrating on her children, Van Meter says.
"She was really grappling with the nightmare and taking care of her kids," he says.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Kim Kardashian's first love, activism and life with Kanye: Revelations from 'Citizen Kim'
