Las Vegas Weekly

November 24, 2008 · 12:02 PM

Exclusive Interview: Kim Kardashian discusses love, NYE plans, Hollywood’s troubled young stars — and the infamous sex tape!

By Robin Leach

Kim and Kourtney Kardashian get their snacks on.

Photo: Jacob Andrzejczak

Gorgeous reality star Kim Kardashian juggles an impressive and incredible work schedule with such ease, it always looks as if she’s simply a Hollywood party girl having nothing but fun. “That’s the last thing I am,” she told me during her weekend visit to the Palms to help promote her new Vegas Magazine cover girl layout. She and sisters Kourtney and Kloe stayed in one of George Maloof’s new Palms Place condo penthouses.

“I am not the big party person everybody makes me out to be. I don’t drink alcohol. I never have because I hate it. I’m always in bed and never make the after-parties. So there is not a lot of what I do that can get me into trouble. You’re more likely to find me at the bowling alley than at a dress-up party.

Photo: Jacob Andrzejczak

Kim Kardashian sashays into the Vegas Magazine cover party.

“People actually make up stuff and create a life that I just don’t have. We’re all pretty brainy and bright, and we have a very strong parental background. So we know where the temptations lie, and we don’t go near them. We laugh because sister Khloe is a birthed born blonde, and they say only us brunettes are the bright ones. But she is brainy, edgy and funny, so there goes that myth.”

Referring to the one headline controversy she was involved in when a secret sex tape she’d unknowingly made with former boyfriend singer Ray J was leaked, Kim told me: “I learned my lesson on that one, and that certainly won’t happen again. I was betrayed and it cost them a lot of money to legally settle with us. (Editor’s note: Reports indicate she won $5 million in that settlement). It’s now in the past and forgotten. We’ve all done something we’re not proud of, but we learn from it. We acknowledge it and then we grow stronger from it.”

I’ve known Kim and her mom and stepdad, Olympic gold medalist decathlete Bruce Jenner, for many years, so I didn’t feel uncomfortable about asking her about the continuing romance with New Orleans Saints star Reggie Bush, who by the way is still convalescing back to playing health after a recent serious knee injury.

Photo: TVT

Kim Kardashian and Palms mogul George Maloof.

Kim said: “I don’t know if 2009 is the year we will get married. It’s been almost two years now of dating. We laugh because I’m 28 and he’s only 23 years old. I am the cougar! We are waiting and living on our own time. There’s no real rush, but, yes, we’ve talked about it many times. We’ve talked about a future together. We’ve talked about a family together. We always talk about where we’re heading in life. This is it for me, though. Reggie has been my support system, and he’s such a good guy. After we get married, we’ll have kids and hopefully I’ll be pregnant within two years.

“Valentine’s Day is coming up, and he will be done with football. We may go on vacation. I don’t know if we are getting engaged. We have talked about an engagement, but it really should come as a surprise when it happens, right? I’m pretty old-fashioned when it comes to that -- very old-fashioned. Reggie is extremely old-fashioned, too, so for the moment, let’s just say we are living life and letting it ride out. I’m far more a mom and a family girl than I am a party girl.

We chatted about last week’s bust-up of mutual friend Paris Hilton from Benji Madden. “It was sad,” we agreed and we thought that it was the one romance of hers that would really make it. “I wish them both the best,” Kim said. “It is not easy trying to have a normal dating and social life in the glare of Hollywood. Nobody understands what it is like to be chased day and night by the paparazzi.

“You have no privacy at all. Your life is lived in the glare of lights in a fishbowl. Every move you make is recorded, analyzed and debated -- and then more often than not harshly criticized for no good reason. Reggie and I and my family don’t let it rule our lives. Thankfully it has only been the last two years or so. You have to separate the person who you are in private from the object that goes out there being on display. You look at the photos of Britney for her new MTV special, and you can see such sadness in her eyes from being a prisoner, being chased her entire life with absolutely no privacy.

“I think you need everyone that you love to surround you. We are able to get privacy. We know the places to go where the paparazzi won’t be. They follow you around, but they kind of leave you alone after a while. If you are sweet and they get what they want, they’ll leave you alone.”

Kim, who was last in Las Vegas as a Pussycat Doll guest star at Pure nightclub, confirmed she will be back in Vegas to celebrate New Year’s and execute the midnight countdown at LAX in the Luxor: “Kourtney, Khloe and I are hosting the New Year’s Eve party. Last year we were with the family, and we decided that was the best way to go. When we are not home in L.A., we love to travel, we love to be together. Being together is the best way to spend it. You have to bring in the New Year with the people you love the most. For the moment, though, I think it is just the girls. We may bring my brother and his girlfriend and my boyfriend. They might come, too, we’re deciding on that.

Photo: Jacob Andrzejczak

Kourtney, Robert and Kim Kardashian.

“I will make the usual resolutions. Last year I promised to lay off of the sweets a little bit. I didn’t do it 100 percent. I cut it out at least 50 percent. I am proud of that -- and then just now you caught me snacking on cotton candy! This New Year, it is going to be a promise to tone up and use more weights in the gym more often more regularly.”

Kim told me that tonight and tomorrow, she’ll be back on the finals show of Dancing With the Stars: “I’m excited about that. We had so much fun doing it before I was eliminated. I hurt my toe before we actually started the show, but fortunately I didn’t get hurt worse once I was on it. I’m predicting that Brooke will win it all. She has been perfect from the start. I love Warren and his partner Kym’s energy together, and Lance and Lacey have this fun, fresh energy that is very edgy that the show has never seen before. It is the perfect trio to have in the finals, so anything can happen.”

Partying up with the Kardashians

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Before we ended our private, exclusive conversation, I asked Kim if there was one thing she wanted to change about her life at the moment and what that would be. “Life would be better if my dad were in it,” she responded. “No matter how great life is, there is the bittersweet thorn in my side that always misses my dad.” Her father was the late Beverly Hills attorney Robert Kardashian, who once represented her godfather, O.J. Simpson, before his sudden painful death in 2003 from throat cancer. She summed up: “We lost him far too soon -- and we weren’t far enough along then for him to see everything we’ve gone on to achieve. I really wish he was around to give advice, give us strength and tell us how proud he would be with what we have achieved. I still have his dress shirt hanging in my closet to remind me of him. That sadness will be with me for always, I know.”

Photo: Jacob Andrzejczak

The power trio of Michael T. Carr, Kerry Simon and the ubiquitous Robin Leach.

Kim brought along Khloe and Kourtney and brother Robert, and they wound up with a rare night off from running her two California clothing Dash stores, her E! Entertainment reality series and getting a new Kim fragrance ready for launching, and were able to take in Usher’s concert at The Pearl in the Palms. They followed with dinner in Iron Chef Kerry Simon’s new restaurant there and then danced into the pre-dawn hours at LAX. They got on the mic to invite all the clubgoers to return for the New Year’s Eve countdown they’ll host.

Pick up your copy of the new Vegas Magazine featuring Kim on the cover and her incredible fashion layout inside, plus her sparkling interview with my pal writer Eric Gladstone. Click HERE for coverage of the magazine release party this past weekend.

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