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8 Scandalous Revelations From The 'Keeping Up With The Kardashians' Oral History

A new oral history gives the family's perspective on their biggest kontroversies

If you follow the Kardashians — on social media, television, or otherwise — you're well aware that gossip abounds and the truth often turns out to be a hell of a lot more interesting than the fiction that keeps the rumor mill churning.

The Hollywood Reporter just published an unfiltered oral history that weaves together the thoughts of Kim Kardashian, Kourtney Kardashian, Khloé Kardashian, Kendall Jenner, Kylie Jenner, Kris, Ryan Seacrest, and a handful of the crew that brought the revolutionary reality show into being now that it's celebrating a decade on the air. (Caitlyn Jenner's input is noticeably absent from the dialogue, as she declined to participate.)

In the piece, the famous family gives the backstory on several of the scandals they've seen since cameras came into their Calabasas home — the dissolution of Kim and Khloé's marriages, Kendall's Pepsi commercial fall-out, the Paris robbery that changed everything — and more. For a family that's transformed a medium under the guise of oversharing, one thing's clear: We've still got plenty to learn about the Kardashians, and these eight tidbits from the THR piece confirmed what we already know (and a few things we didn't).

There would be no Kardashians without The Osbournes

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E! 2012 Upfront

The success of the reality series that followed the zany life at home of Ozzy, Sharon, Kelly, and Jack Osbourne is directly responsible for Kris opening her front door to her own Keeping Up with the Kardashians film crew. [Full disclosure: The Osbournes was an MTV series that ran on the network from 2002-2005.] Ryan Seacrest, Kardashians executive producer, said that the rock 'n' roll family served as the initial muses of the Kardashian empire: "Everyone was talking about The Osbournes, and I said to my development executive Eliot [Goldberg], "Let's try to find something in this world and take it to E!"

Kris is not here for any implication that Caitlyn came up with the idea for the series.

Though Caitlyn didn't want to participate in this conversation, she addresses the start of the series in her memoir, The Secrets of My Life, and THR points out that the implication is heavy that Kardashians "may actually have been her brainchild." Kris disagrees with Caitlyn's understanding of the shows origins. "It's so absurd," she says. "I'm not sure what the motivation was for her to say something like that. Maybe somebody should remind her that it's called Keeping Up With the Kardashians."

Kim and Kanye are definitely looking into surrogacy.

Kim suffered from placenta accreta when she was pregnant with Saint, and though she and Kanye are eager to bring another child into the world, they're looking into options — specifically surrogacy — when it comes to growing their family. "There have been a lot of things said and Kanye and I have not confirmed anything," she says. "We're definitely trying. We are hoping so."

Lamar Odom was the one to push for Khloé & Lamar.

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Kanye West Yeezy Season 3 - Front Row

Though Khloé married (now retired) basketball player Lamar Odom in front of the cameras for a Kardashians wedding special in 2009, she wasn't the one looking for the spin-off series that followed her marriage and life at home with Lamar for two seasons. "I never wanted to do Khloe & Lamar; my ex-husband did," she says. "He sold it to E!, and I let it happen because I wanted him to be happy. I was the one who canceled it. It was way too much."

Kim almost walked away from her wedding to Kris Humphries — and her mom was totally supportive of it.

Kim's second marriage — to basketball player Kris Humphries, one that took place in 2011 and lasted for 72 days — was filmed for the show, and the episode would go on to bring in ratings that the series has yet to top. (It also brought in a staggering $10 million in ad revenue.) Reflecting on that painful period in her life, Kim explains how the assumption that the marriage was a sham for the show is a faulty one — and reveals that her mom gave her a way out before the ceremony that she didn't take.

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"There was all this attention on the wedding, and I thought maybe it was just the pressure of the show giving me this anxiety," she remembers. "My friends told me I just had cold feet, but even the producers said, 'You don't seem happy. You don't have to go through with this.' The night before, my mom pulled me aside, off camera, and was like, 'This isn't it for you. Why don't you go away and I'll handle it?' I felt like, if I pulled out now, everyone's going to think I just did it for the show. Then afterwards, people were saying, 'You have to stay married for a year,' but I physically couldn't do it. When I made the decision [to divorce], everyone said it was made up for the show. Everyone really wanted to take me down ... Think about this realistically: If it was for the show, don't you think we would have found someone that signed off? Someone OK with getting married and getting divorced two months later? If it's for a show, don't you think you'd want as little legal trouble as possible? This was real emotions, real feelings. People fuck up."

The decision to film the family's life following the Paris robbery was about telling the story in Kim's own words, first and foremost.

The lives of everyone in the Kardashian orbit changed in the fall of 2016, when a group of robbers broke into the luxury residence Kim was staying in during Paris Fashion Week, tied her up, and robbed her of millions of dollars worth of jewelry. She kept a low profile in the months following the horrifying incident, until Kardashians handled the event with care, offering tearful testimony from Kim, along with intimate footage of the family as they were processing what was happening and began the healing process.

"I was OK to show my struggles, because there was no way that I was going to allow it to damage me and make me a different person for my kids," she says of the decision to share their post-robbery experiences on camera. "I wasn't going to allow it to debilitate me from being be the mom that I need to be ... It really changed our lives. This extra layer of security needed to happen. On social media, I'll never post something where I'm at home unless I know there's four to six security. We know when we're filming it doesn't air until months later, so we can share that and be free and always be who we are."

Kendall is the most private Kardashian sister — and that's why she didn't speak out after the Pepsi controversy.

"I'm the most private one," Kendall shares. "If there's a moment I don't want anyone to hear, I talk to myself or talk to someone in another room." This, according to Kim, is why Kendall didn't comment on the outrage-sparking Pepsi ad she starred in earlier this year.

"We're not perfect," says Kim, "but you see these things in the media, like Kendall and [her Pepsi ad], where I see her at home crying, but in the media she looks another way because she's not addressing it. I'm just like, 'This is wrong. You need to speak up.' She was like, 'I don't ever want to show that footage of me crying.' She was trying to not make excuses or be dramatic, but that was what she was going through at the time."

Kris is a low-key prophet.

Considering that the Kardashians are still convincing an average of 2.1 million viewers to tune into the latest hour-long chapter of their lives every Sunday, it's no shocker that Kris, the girls, and their growing family have no intention of slowing down well into their thirteenth season.

"When we first started, I jokingly said, "We'll be on season 32, Kylie gets married." I was kidding, and here we are, and it's season 14, so be careful what you wish for."

Even though Life of Kylie just kicked off, who knows? Mama Kris may need to add fortune-telling to her long list of accomplishments.

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