by Sean Smith
It really is a case of whom to believe in an acrimonious split. When the divorce was made final, Damon was ordered to pay Kim $56,000, which was by no means a large sum. There wasn’t much left after she settled the debt she had run up on her credit cards of $40,000. Fortunately, he agreed to cover her legal fees, totalling $20,000. Of more importance to her than money at this point, however, were the precious possessions which she had left behind at Damon’s house: an inscribed Bible from her father, a signed Manolo Blahnik book, her high school yearbooks and about a hundred other books that made up her library.
Her financial concerns were insignificant next to Damon’s, which included a tax liability of more than $700,000. His career continued its upward path, though. In 2003, when his private life was in turmoil, The Underdogs signed a deal with the legendary Clive Davis at J Records to start a new label, Underdog Entertainment. This was big news in the music business. Damon gushed, ‘Clive has a true love for artists and their music, and that is exciting to us.’
The rise of The Underdogs culminated in 2006, when Damon and Harvey produced the soundtrack for the Oscar-winning film Dreamgirls, loosely based on the early days of The Supremes. Two of the big ballad tracks became modern classics: ‘Listen’ by Beyoncé and Jennifer Hudson’s powerful ‘And I’m Telling You I’m Not Going’. Damon and Harvey won a Black Reel Award for the soundtrack and derived enormous kudos from their work.
Only Harvey seemed to kick on after this triumph, however. He formed Harvey Mason Media in 2008, has won six Grammys and is a major success story. His website’s online biography of his career and achievements doesn’t mention Thomas’s contribution.
Damon hasn’t done as well financially in recent years, filing for bankruptcy in 2012. The documents revealed he owed more than $3.5 million, mainly in back taxes. His principal asset was a Lamborghini worth $170,000. Damon still works at Harvey Mason’s studios on Vineland Avenue, North Hollywood, but has been living more modestly in Northridge.
One thing is sure about Kim’s first marriage: it wasn’t a happy one for either of them. Perhaps Kim was indulging in some teenage rebellion a little later than most young people. She demonstrated for the first, but not the last, time that she possessed a strong will and that if she wanted to do something, then she would press ahead and do it.
In 2015, blissfully married to Kanye West, she looked back on her first attempt and told the TV host Matt Lauer, ‘You think you know so much about love when you’re young and you look back later and probably realise it is not what you thought it was.’
9
THE DEATH OF ROBERT KARDASHIAN
While Kim was involved in her bitter divorce, she received some awful news. Her father, Robert Kardashian, was dying. It came as a terrible shock to all the family when, in July 2003, he told them that he had oesophageal cancer. The oesophagus, or food pipe, is the tube that carries food from your mouth to your stomach. He had suffered badly over the years with severe acid indigestion and was forever taking antacids to relieve his discomfort. His cancer had already advanced to Stage IV, which meant that it had spread to other organs in his body, leaving little room for hope.
Grimly, his illness wasn’t the only one casting a shadow over the family that summer. Kim’s maternal grandfather, Harry Shannon, was in hospital in San Diego and sinking fast. Kris Jenner’s 78-year-old stepfather, whom she affectionately called Dad, was admitted after a car accident. Tragically, he caught a staph infection and never made it home. Robert managed to travel to San Diego for the funeral, but it would be his last trip.
Robert’s private life since the O. J. Simpson trial had been interesting, to say the least. Out of the blue, he had married a woman called Jan Ashley in November 1998. Jan, who lived nearby in Encino, had no children and they got married so they could have a child together. Robert wasn’t the sort of man who would contemplate such a thing outside marriage.
According to divorce papers he filed the following May, he couldn’t go through with it: ‘Approximately two months after our marriage, I changed my mind. I decided that since I already had four biological children, I did not wish to have any more. The respondent [Ashley] and I both entered into this marriage with the expectation of having a child together. I am the one who changed my mind.’
It was a most curious episode in Robert Kardashian’s life. Much later, Jan would put the blame for the demise of her short-lived marriage firmly on the shoulders of his children, who she claimed were after him for ‘money, money, money’. She didn’t look back on her time as Mrs Kardashian with great joy. ‘It took me about one day to get over it,’ she said.
Robert moved to Lake Encino Drive, another smart street in Encino. The house, on a corner and with no view, was nothing like the best in the neighbourhood. It was still a desirable property, just not in the same league as Tower Lane. He began dating an elegant blonde woman called Ellen Pearson, who was involved in real estate. They had started seeing each other in 1998, but had split up before he became involved with Jan. After meeting again at a party in December 1999, they resumed their relationship. Robert bought a second house near his parents in Indian Wells and the couple divided their time between the two homes.
They became engaged in 2002, and planned their wedding for the following year. They decided to have a honeymoon before getting married and enjoyed an idyllic holiday in Italy in May and June 2003. On their return, they thought they had plenty of time to finish the preparations for the big day at Hotel Bel-Air on 5 August 2003. On a weekend visit to Indian Wells in early June, however, Robert complained of stomach pains and decided he needed to see a doctor. A few weeks later, on 11 July, he was given the bleak diagnosis and told his family. Ellen recalled, ‘He was a religious man. He was not at all concerned about passing, because he believed in God. He just hadn’t wanted to go so soon.’
His deterioration was rapid and the wedding had to be cancelled. He could eat very little and was losing a lot of weight. Kim did her best by going to the house and making him his favourite Cream of Wheat, a type of porridge that is popular in the US. Robert liked his served especially sweet, so Kim would always sprinkle a layer of sugar in the bowl before she stirred in the cereal. It was something she had enjoyed preparing for her father when she was a little girl and here she was, a 22-year-old woman, trying to do something nice for her dad before he died.
Robert was well enough to marry Ellen at the house in Encino on 27 July. His four children were there, as were his brother Tommy, sister Barbara and Ellen’s daughter April. Understandably, it was a very small affair, with a subdued celebration in the garden afterwards.
The circumstances of Robert’s demise set off a decade and more of feuding between stepmother and children, with allegations and counterclaims flying all over the place concerning the access the children had to their father in his dying days. They now seem to have settled their legal issues.
Ellen became the second person Kris Jenner couldn’t bring herself to name in her autobiography, calling her ‘a woman he had only been dating a short time’.
Robert Kardashian passed away on 30 September 2003. He was 59. The funeral at the Inglewood Park Cemetery was standing room only, as his many friends gathered to pay their respects. Kim gave an address, which, unused to public speaking, she found very hard. Afterwards, everyone went back to the Bel-Air Country Club, which, by grim coincidence, had been the venue for the reception when he had married Kris. Al Cowlings was there, but O. J. Simpson didn’t attend, which was probably a good thing. He would have been the focus of attention rather than the celebration of Robert’s life.
O. J. had tried to reach Robert on the phone before he died, despite the two not having spoken for years. He was gracious about his former friend after his death: ‘It’s shocking when a friend close to you passes. I loved Bobby. We had one disagreement over the years, about a book he did for money. He explained it to me. I understood it, and we put it aside. Bob was there when I needed him most.’
The newspaper obit
uaries, unsurprisingly, focused on Robert’s involvement in the O. J. Simpson trial. The New York Times spelled it out in its headline: ‘Robert Kardashian, a lawyer for O. J. Simpson, dies at 59’. His family barely received a mention in the article. The Guardian pointed out that few would have heard of Robert if he had not sat beside O. J. throughout the trial. Until she found fame in her own right, Kim was frequently described as the daughter of O. J. Simpson’s lawyer.
One of the issues that has caused much subsequent speculation is how much money Robert had and what his children actually inherited. He had made a considerable amount from the sale of Radio & Records, but that had been nearly 25 years before and since then he had provided an extravagant lifestyle for his family.
There is no doubt that Kim and her siblings were indulged and spoiled as children. They admit it themselves. By Beverly Hills standards, they were comfortably off, but not particularly wealthy. According to Jan Ashley, they weren’t rich. She maintained, ‘He didn’t have any money. He always pretended he had money.’
Ellen maintained that he had large mortgages on the two properties in Encino and Indian Wells. She became president of Movie Tunes, Inc., which was now based on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City. Financial difficulties, however, led to her filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2010. The house in Indian Wells was repossessed by the bank and sold. The Encino house was also sold. She began working for a real estate company called Western Resources Title as part of their sales force based in San Diego. She hasn’t remarried and still calls herself Mrs Ellen Kardashian. She remembers Robert fondly: ‘He had a lot of dignity, a great outlook on life and a fantastic sense of humour. We were very much in love.’
Details of Robert’s will weren’t made public, although apparently there was an insurance policy that would benefit his children in due course. They were also left ‘his personal tangible and intangible property’, a clause that would be contentious in a future vicious legal action between Ellen and the Kardashian children.
Robert’s daughters reacted in different ways to the shock of his death. Kourtney joined her mother in a new venture. For years they had talked of running their own store and now was the perfect time to focus on something new and take their minds off a miserable year. They opened a children’s boutique called Smooch in the centre of Calabasas. Kris had been helping to run a similar shop, which had been the family business for 30 years, while Harry was ill and that had inspired her to open her own.
Kourtney relished the opportunity and threw herself into running everything. Her life revolved around it: ‘I used to work in the store all day, every day, stay hours after closing and was obsessed with it. Smooch was my baby . . . in a weird way, the store really helped me deal with my father’s death . . . I put my feelings into the store!’
Khloé, aged 19, wasn’t as fortunate. She was so upset that she had found it too difficult to visit her ailing father. The emotional stress caused her hair to fall out and she had to wear wigs, extensions and hats until it grew back. She started drinking too much and spent most nights going to clubs with an unsuitable crowd. She was very unhappy.
Kim planned a holiday in Mexico for her twenty-third birthday in October 2003. She needed to relax and get away from her troubles. The night before she flew, she made a sex tape with her boyfriend that would have an extraordinary effect on her future.
All three of his daughters saw Robert Kardashian as the greatest influence on their lives. They try hard to keep his memory alive by marking special occasions throughout the year, including the anniversary of his birthday or his passing, or Father’s Day. On his birthday, they return to his favourite Armenian restaurant in Hollywood, called Carousel. He used to take his family there for special celebrations so they could sample the authentic, unpretentious food. Kim usually ate chicken, although she was also partial to the feta cheese appetiser.
Sadly, Robert Kardashian didn’t live to see the birth of his grandchildren, nor did he witness what would have been one of his proudest days – when his only son, Robert Jr, graduated from USC, his old alma mater, with a degree in business in 2009. His ex-wife Kris Jenner observed, ‘The one regret, if I had to do it over, was divorcing Robert Kardashian.’
To mark the fifth anniversary of her father’s death, Kim posted a touching eulogy on her website. His absence has somehow made his presence in their lives greater. She said he was watching over and protecting them: ‘There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t think about him or wish he were here.’ She concluded simply, ‘I love you, Dad.’
10
QUEEN OF THE CLOSET SCENE
Kim’s new boyfriend was a handsome young rapper and actor called William Ray Norwood, Jr, known as Ray J. They were introduced by his sister, Brandy, a very popular singer and TV actress, at a party in early 2003. As far as he was concerned, Kim was a married woman and off limits, but there was an instant attraction between the two. It wasn’t long before they couldn’t keep their hands off one another.
Ray J would later reveal that Kim left Damon for him as soon as they started having sex and said their passion for each other was intense. Wild and extreme sexual chemistry, according to the indiscreet Ray J, was a big part of their relationship: ‘We were like animals, sexually free to try anything.’
Ray J and his sister were from McComb, Mississippi, the Southern town where Britney Spears was born and went to school. They were unlikely ever to have bumped into her though, because the area was notoriously racist and, historically, a stronghold for the Ku Klux Klan.
They escaped that prejudice when their parents moved to Carson, California, 13 miles south of downtown Los Angeles. Their father was the gospel singer Willie Norwood, and both children learned much of their vocal technique from listening to their father sing in church. He wasn’t the only musical one in the family – the rap superstar Snoop Dogg is a first cousin (his mother Beverly is also from McComb). From a young age, the Norwood children were involved in the performing arts.
Brandy, who is two years older than her brother, made her television debut, aged 14, in 1993 and signed with Atlantic Records the same year. Kim’s husband, Damon, featured on her first, eponymously titled album, playing piano and keyboards. He also co-wrote and produced two tracks, ‘I’m Yours’ and ‘Love Is on My Side’, which he composed with Robin Thicke, who would become a household name 20 years later, thanks to the song ‘Blurred Lines’. Harvey Mason, Jr worked on her second album, Never Say Never, so both Underdogs knew her well. She was very much part of the new wave of young black talent sweeping the music business.
Ray J always seemed to be hanging on to his sister’s coat-tails, a pace behind. He had a record deal at 14, but was dropped by Elektra Records after just one album. His sister’s career continued to prosper, however, with the success of ‘The Boy Is Mine’, her 1998 duet with Monica. It was the bestselling single of the year, with sales of 2.6 million.
Kim worked for Brandy after meeting her through Damon. She had realised that she couldn’t make a living buying and selling her own possessions on eBay, and had displayed early business acumen by expanding into closet organising and personal styling. Progress was slow. At first, she would take every opportunity to go through the things her friends no longer had a use for, advising them which items they could sell and then splitting the profits with them.
She took her business a step further one day when she was visiting the Pacific Palisades home of Sugar Ray Leonard and his second wife, Bernadette. Sugar Ray had been a family friend of her father since before she was born and was also a long-standing friend of Bruce Jenner. They had both won gold medals at the Montreal Olympics and Ray, too, had subsequently carved out a career as a motivational speaker.
Bernadette had a massive closet, as big as a bedroom, which was seriously disorganised. Kim explained, ‘I said to her, “You really need to clean out your closet.” Well, we spent the whole night doing that.’ She persuaded Bernadette that it would be far better to sell the thousands of dollars of designer
clothing on eBay than to throw away the expensive dresses and accessories. It was the start of the next stage of her career.
She became ‘Queen of the Closet Scene’ when Bernadette started recommending Kim’s skill to her friends. Kim used her own seller’s account, and photographed every article so that it looked its best. She would write little paragraphs describing the items, so she had the best chance of selling every single thing. This wasn’t an idle pursuit; it was work and it was supplying her with an income. Kim was very methodical and precise. She had never been a teenage girl whose bedroom was a mess of clothes. She liked everything to be clean and tidy, labelled and folded.
Although she was incredibly well organised, she could still be endearingly dippy. She was thrilled when she could afford to buy her own Range Rover. She had a new mobile to put into the middle console in the car as well, and she bedazzled the cell so it would stand out. Unfortunately, she put so much decoration on the phone that, when she came to slot it into the console, it didn’t fit.
She had discovered a niche market. Soon, big names, like Cindy Crawford and Serena Williams, Rob Lowe and the acclaimed saxophone player Kenny G, were taking advantage of her services. Kim was learning very quickly that it was all about connections in Los Angeles. If you didn’t make enough of them at school, then it helped to be with someone who had them. Her mother was an accomplished networker from the moment she moved to LA, and Kim was keen to follow her example.
Working for Brandy as a personal stylist was another step forward, although it wasn’t entirely glamorous. She still had to go and pick up the dry cleaning if there was a specific outfit she was recommending her client to wear. Brandy had seen her name on a worst-dressed list, which wasn’t the best news for someone in demand on the red carpet, and had asked Kim for fashion advice.
