Kim Kardashian on Her Legal Ambitions, Social Media Efforts and New Spotify Podcast

Kim Kardashian is taking her latest legal fight to Spotify.

On the heels of passing the baby bar exam and solidifying her status as a force in criminal justice, the reality star has released the first two episodes of her first original podcast, Kim Kardashian’s The System: The Case of Kevin Keith. The pod, which is narrated by Kardashian and veteran true-crime producer Lori Rothschild Ansaldi, tells the story of Keith, who was convicted of triple homicide in February 1994. For nearly three decades, the Ohio resident has been working with his family to prove that he was wrongly accused.

As Kardashian notes early in the eight-episode podcast, there is no physical evidence tying Keith to the murders, for which he has already served 28 years behind bars, many of them on death row. The case, which Rothschild Ansaldi has been investigating for years, has been appealed multiple times. Over the course of the pod’s first season, Kardashian and Rothschild Ansaldi spend time with Keith, his brother and other key players as they try to expose cracks in his case and in the criminal justice system at large.

Kardashian caught up with The Hollywood Reporter in late September to discuss the new podcast, her lofty legal ambitions and why, despite those ambitions, her 330 million Instagram followers can still expect to see photos of her lavish vacations and provocative fashion moments mixed in, too. (Editor’s note: THR interviewed Kardashian before she was charged by the SEC for unlawfully touting cryptocurrency EthereumMax on Oct. 3.)

So, your involvement in Kevin Keith’s case dates to 2018. As you note in the first episode, the case was first brought to your attention during your appearance on Celebrity Family Feud. What did you learn that day and in subsequent days that made you want to devote the next four years to telling this story?

Well, the main thing that really stuck out was that someone can be convicted of a crime, let alone a triple homicide, without any physical evidence linking him to the crime — and he was sentenced to death. So, we spoke to the governor later on in the season, and [he tells us] how he regrets his decision, and he wishes he could do more now, but he ended up commuting his sentence to life without the possibility of parole. So, Kevin’s been in for 28 years for a crime that I believe he didn’t commit, and what got me was his brother. Usually, you think of the victims and their families and how their lives are affected, but there are other victims if someone is wrongfully accused of something. It doesn’t just affect their life; it affects their entire family’s life. His brother, Charles Keith, had to figure out how to fight for his family and for his brother — he had no money and he had to figure out this system and how to find the right people to fight for his brother. I just thought, like, “Wow, that’s what I would do for someone in my family,” and that’s really what connected me to it. I wanted to tell the story from their side, too.

How did you decide a podcast with Spotify was the best way to tell that story?

Ultimately, everyone wants to feel safe in our society. So, if people are going to feel comfortable and support causes of letting people out [of prison], and obviously policy has to change in order for that to happen, I think storytelling is key. Sharing people’s stories that are not just on a rap sheet will help people get comfortable and understand where someone has come from. Usually, you don’t hear the other side. Usually, you hear triple homicide, and you get scared, especially if they’re convicted. No one’s going to look into [that person’s case] enough to understand, well, there was no physical evidence linking him [to the crime].

Sure, but you could also just fire off a few posts to your 330 million Instagram followers.

Yes, I can go on Instagram, I can post something and sometimes people will listen, and sometimes it’s too long for people’s attention spans and they’re not going to be following the story. I thought what better place to really have my opportunity to tell a story at length and in-depth than on a platform like Spotify, which is best in class for audio storytelling and has the reach? It also allows me to dive into all the details and share so much of the audio and compile it all together, as opposed to just sharing like I’ve typically done in the past on social media.

Is your intention to tell a different story every season?

Yes.

Do you already have your next season’s story figured out?

I think so. It’s not officially locked in, but it’s another Kevin — the case of Kevin Cooper, which I’ve been working on for a very long time. Ultimately, the goal is to shake shit up. The more that people hear about [the case], the more maybe people will come out with some new information that they didn’t feel comfortable sharing before. You never know what can happen when you create noise.

This is your first foray into the true-crime genre. Who or what did you look to for inspiration?

My favorite podcast is Serial and, once I heard that, I started to listen to true-crime podcasts.

And now that your first season is in the can, what’s the end goal? If all goes well, what happens?

The ultimate end goal would be for the governor to commute Kevin’s sentence. But then I feel like an investigation has to happen, too, to figure out who really did this and get that person behind bars. And I have speculation [about who that person is].

I presume that after you were famously able to get Alice Johnson pardoned by former President Trump, you’ve been deluged with similar requests. How do you decide whose stories you believe and are worth committing yourself to?

I get a lot of letters, and I read them and save them all. Sometimes I’ve worked on cases where I’ve received letters from people and I just felt so passionate [about wanting to help]. But I also have a team of people that I respect and trust in this business and I’ll shoot them a text and say, “Hey, have you heard of this case? So and so is in Tennessee or Georgia or wherever.” We’ll look it up and look into it. If the whole team collectively and strongly believes either in their innocence or their rehabilitation, then it’s usually a go for me.

So, it’s not just me feeling something and saying, “I’m going to support this.” I have a whole team of people who vet these cases and make sure that they believe just as strongly as I do and they have way more information than me before I connect to it. And then the process of connecting and the outreach is different [from case to case]. I prefer to do everything as privately as possible first and try to see how we want to get things done and what the process is like, and then we get louder and louder from there. Sometimes you need to be outspoken and share the story, and sometimes you need to privately go to the lawmakers and to the people in power to make a difference.

Speaking of noise, is the making of the podcast something you will showcase on The Kardashians?

I know this sounds really awful, but I don’t even remember — we filmed so much. We film all day. So far, it’s not in anything that I’ve seen edited. I do know that we filmed content of me doing the podcast, but I have no idea what’s going to make it into the show. It’s definitely not in the second season.

How do you get people to care as much about this as they do about who you’re dating or what you wore to the Met Ball?

Right?! (Laughs.) I think about one time when I went to the White House and I posted some picture that someone at the White House typically wouldn’t be posting to their Instagram and I remember thinking, like, “OK, do I have to change who I am? Do I have a responsibility to maybe not post certain things?” But then I felt like maybe the mix of everything is why people care, because it’s me being myself — and if I changed my whole Instagram to only post when I talk about [prison] reform on shows with the Clintons or when I meet with a governor to talk about cases that I’m working on, I don’t know if my fan base [sticks with me]. I think we’re getting people to pay attention more because I’m myself and I’m posting what I feel in that moment. It could be from a vacation or a fashion show or it could be from law school or my reform work. Of course, I’d like other things to maybe not get as much attention and other things be highlighted more, but I’m happy that I can maybe bring a different type of audience to this other world.

Going forward, how do you envision your legal career factoring into the rest of your pursuits? You have multiple businesses, a TV show, a new private equity firm.

Well, I don’t sleep. But it’s a choice that I am choosing to make. School is very time-consuming. It’s a couple of hours every day, but anything that I’m involved in is going to be a hundred percent of me, and my time is really micromanaged. I want to finish law school and then my ultimate goal is to open up a firm that hires formerly incarcerated people. But that might take a while.

Interview edited for length and clarity.