Tears, Trauma and a Million-Dollar Necklace as Defiant Kim Kardashian Faces Paris Robbery Suspects 

Kim Kardashian leaves the justice palace after testifying, regarding a robbery of millions of dollars in jewels from her Paris hotel room in 2016, in Paris, Tuesday, May 13, 2025. (AP)
Kim Kardashian leaves the justice palace after testifying, regarding a robbery of millions of dollars in jewels from her Paris hotel room in 2016, in Paris, Tuesday, May 13, 2025. (AP)
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Tears, Trauma and a Million-Dollar Necklace as Defiant Kim Kardashian Faces Paris Robbery Suspects 

Kim Kardashian leaves the justice palace after testifying, regarding a robbery of millions of dollars in jewels from her Paris hotel room in 2016, in Paris, Tuesday, May 13, 2025. (AP)
Kim Kardashian leaves the justice palace after testifying, regarding a robbery of millions of dollars in jewels from her Paris hotel room in 2016, in Paris, Tuesday, May 13, 2025. (AP)

Defiant in diamonds, Kim Kardashian appeared in a Paris courtroom Tuesday to testify in the trial over the 2016 armed robbery that upended her life. The reality star and business mogul gave emotional, at times harrowing, testimony about the night masked men tied her up at gunpoint and stole more than $6 million in jewelry.

Here’s what she revealed — and what’s still to come.

A night that changed everything Kardashian said she was starting to doze off in bed in the early hours when she heard stomping on the stairs. She assumed it was her sister Kourtney returning from a night out. “Hello? Hello? Who is it?” she called.

Moments later, two masked men burst in. They dragged the concierge in handcuffs. They were dressed as police.

“I thought it was some sort of terrorist attack,” she said.

She grabbed her phone but froze — “I didn’t know what 911 was (in France).” She tried to call her sister and her bodyguard, but one man grabbed her hand to stop her. They threw her on the bed, bound her hands and held a gun to her back.

“I have babies,” she recalled telling the robbers. “I have to make it home. They can take everything. I just have to make it home.”

Her robe fell open — she said she was naked underneath — as one man pulled her toward him. “I was certain that was the moment that he was going to rape me,” Kardashian said.

One attacker leaned in and told her, in English, she’d be OK if she stayed quiet. He taped her mouth shut and took her to the bathroom.

Kardashian later managed to free her hands by rubbing the tape against the bathroom sink. She hopped downstairs, ankles still bound, and found her friend and stylist, Simone Harouche. Fearing the men might return, the women climbed onto the balcony and hid in bushes. While lying there, Kardashian called her mother.

The men took a diamond ring she’d worn that night to a Givenchy show and rifled through her jewelry box. They took items including a watch her late father had given her when she graduated high school. “It wasn’t just jewelry. It was so many memories,” she said.

Investigators believe the attackers followed Kardashian’s digital breadcrumbs — images, timestamps, geotags — and exploited them with old-school criminal methods.

The robbery reshaped Kardashian’s sense of safety and freedom. “This experience really changed everything for us,” she said. “I started to get this phobia of going out.”

She often rents adjoining hotel rooms for protection and no longer stores jewelry at home, and now has up to six security guards at home.

"I can’t even sleep at night” otherwise, she said.

She also said she no longer makes social media posts in real time unless at a public event. Her Los Angeles home was robbed shortly after the Paris heist in what she believes was a copycat attack.

In a powerful courtroom moment, the chief judge read aloud a letter from one of the accused, who is too ill to testify. The letter said he had seen Kardashian’s tears on television and expressed regret. Kardashian was visibly moved.

“I’m obviously emotional,” she said in response.

“I do appreciate the letter, for sure,” she added. “I forgive you for what had taken place. But it doesn’t change the emotion, the trauma, and the way my life is forever changed.”

Kardashian, who is studying to become a lawyer, added that she regularly visits prisons. “I’ve always believed in second chances,” she said.

Kardashian made a fashion statement in court, wearing a $1.5 million necklace by Samer Halimeh New York. The jeweler's press release for the necklace came out even as she was on the witness stand, a reminder that visibility remains currency, even if the rules have grown more complicated.

The choice reflected defiance and the reclaiming of the image and luxury once used against her.

Kardashian said Paris had once been a sanctuary, a place where she would walk at 3 or 4 a.m., window shopping, sometimes stopping for hot chocolate. It “always felt really safe,” she said. “It was always a magical place.”

Twelve suspects were originally charged. One has died. One was excused due to illness. The French press dubbed the group “les papys braqueurs” — “the grandpa robbers” — but prosecutors say they were no harmless retirees.

The defendants face charges including armed robbery, kidnapping and gang association. If convicted, they could face life in prison.

Kardashian said she was grateful for the opportunity to “tell my truth” in the packed Paris courtroom.

“This is my closure,” she said. “This is me putting this, hopefully, to rest.”

The trial is expected to conclude May 23.



‘The Osbournes’ Changed Ozzy’s Image from Grisly to Cuddly, and Changed Reality TV 

Metal-rock star Ozzy Osbourne holds a replica of his new star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as he poses with his family during a ceremony on April 12, 2002, in Los Angeles. Pictured with Osbourne, from left, are Aimee, Sharon, Kelly, Jack and Louis. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, File)
Metal-rock star Ozzy Osbourne holds a replica of his new star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as he poses with his family during a ceremony on April 12, 2002, in Los Angeles. Pictured with Osbourne, from left, are Aimee, Sharon, Kelly, Jack and Louis. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, File)
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‘The Osbournes’ Changed Ozzy’s Image from Grisly to Cuddly, and Changed Reality TV 

Metal-rock star Ozzy Osbourne holds a replica of his new star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as he poses with his family during a ceremony on April 12, 2002, in Los Angeles. Pictured with Osbourne, from left, are Aimee, Sharon, Kelly, Jack and Louis. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, File)
Metal-rock star Ozzy Osbourne holds a replica of his new star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as he poses with his family during a ceremony on April 12, 2002, in Los Angeles. Pictured with Osbourne, from left, are Aimee, Sharon, Kelly, Jack and Louis. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, File)

There was Ozzy before "The Osbournes" and Ozzy after "The Osbournes."

For much of his life, the Black Sabbath founder and legendary heavy metal frontman who died at 76 on Tuesday was known to much of the public as a dark purveyor of deeds.

Wild stories followed him. Clergy condemned him. Parents sued him.

But with the debut of his family reality show on MTV, the world learned what those who'd been paying closer attention already knew: Ozzy Osbourne was soft and fuzzy under the darkness.

During its relatively short run from 2002 to 2005, "The Osbournes" became a runaway hit and made stars of his wife Sharon and kids Jack and Kelly. But more than that, it made a star of the domesticated version of Ozzy Osbourne, and in the process changed reality TV.

In 2025, when virtually every variety of celebrity has had a reality show, it's hard to see what a novelty the series was. MTV sold it as television's first "reality sitcom."

"Just the idea of the Black Sabbath founder, who will forever be known for biting the head off a bat during a 1982 concert, as a family man seems strange," Associated Press Media Writer David Bauder wrote on the eve of "The Osbournes" premiere. But on the show, Osbourne was "sweetly funny — and under everything a lot like the put-upon dads you’ve been seeing in television sitcoms for generations."

Danny Deraney, a publicist who worked with Osbourne and was a lifelong fan, said of the show, "You saw some guy who was curious. You saw some guy who was being funny. You just saw pretty much the real thing."

"He’s not the guy that everyone associates with the ‘Prince of Darkness’ and all this craziness," Deraney said. "And people loved him. He became so affable to so many people because of that show. As metal fans, we knew it. We knew that’s who he was. But now everyone knew."

Reality shows at the time, especially the popular competition shows like "Survivor," thrived on heightened circumstances. For "The Osbournes," no stakes were too low.

They sat on the couch. They ate dinner. The now-sober Ozzy sipped Diet Cokes, and urged his kids not to indulge in alcohol or drugs when they went out. He struggled to find the History Channel on his satellite TV. They feuded with the neighbors because, of all things, their loud music was driving the Osbournes crazy.

"You were seeing this really fascinating, appealing, bizarre tension between the public persona of a celebrity and their mundane experiences at home," said Kathryn VanArendonk, a critic for Vulture and New York Magazine.

The sitcom tone was apparent from its first moments.

"You turn on this show and you get this like little jazzy cover theme song of the song ‘Crazy Train,’ and there’s all these bright colors and fancy editing, and we just got to see this like totally 180-degree different side of Ozzy which was just surprising and incredible to watch," said Nick Caruso, staff editor at TVLine.

Like family sitcoms, the affection its leads clearly had for each other was essential to its appeal.

"For some reason, we kind of just fell in love with them the same way that we grew to love Ozzy and Sharon as like a marital unit," Caruso said.

What was maybe strangest about the show was how not-strange it felt. The two Ozzies seemed seamless rather than contradictory.

"You’re realizing that these things are personas and that all personas are these like elaborate complex mosaics of like who a person is," VanArendonk said.

"The Osbournes" had both an immediate and a long-term affect on the genre.

Both Caruso and VanArendonk said shows like "Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica," which followed then-pop stars Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey after they married, was clearly a descendant.

And countless other shows felt its influence, from "The Kardashians" to "The Baldwins" — the recently debuted reality series on Alec Baldwin, his wife Hilaria and their seven kids.

"'The Baldwins’ as a reality show is explicitly modeled on ‘The Osbournes,’ VanArendonk said. "It’s like you have these famous people and now you get to see what their home lives are like, what they are like as parents, what they’re eating, what they are taking on with them on vacation, who their pets are, and they are these sort of cuddly, warm, eccentric figures."