When Kanye West debuted the controversial, NSFW music video for his track “Famous” at the Forum in Los Angeles on Friday, June 24, he surprised plenty of fans and critics — and even his wife and video star, Kim Kardashian.
The 35-year-old reality star revealed in a new interview with Women’s Wear Daily that she didn’t see the video in its final form until that night.
“I actually never saw the final edit of it,” she told WWD at the celebration of her GQ cover on Tuesday, June 28. “I did that kind of on purpose because I love to be surprised. It was, like, three, four months in the making, so I obviously knew it was going on, but I didn’t actually see the final cut until he debuted it at the Forum. It was really cool.”
As previously reported, West, 39, caused a flurry of comments online after he premiered the racy music video, which features 12 celebrities — including himself and Kardashian — sprawled out and sleeping in the nude. (Other familiar faces, all of them connected to West by collaborations or feuds, include George W. Bush, Anna Wintour, Donald Trump, Rihanna, Chris Brown, Taylor Swift, Ray J, Amber Rose, Caitlyn Jenner and Bill Cosby.)
“Why I gotta have the plumbers butt/crack showing WAX figure?” Brown, 27, captioned a screenshot of the video in a post to Instagram. “This n—a KANYE CRAZY, talented, but crazy.”
Lena Dunham, a close pal of Swift’s and a fan of other women depicted, took to Facebook to offer her take on the video, which she called “one of the most disturbing ‘artistic’ efforts in recent memory.”
“I know that there’s a hipper or cooler reaction to have than the one I’m currently having,” the Girls creator wrote. “But guess what? I don’t have a hip cool reaction, because seeing a woman I love like Taylor Swift (f–k that one hurt to look at, I couldn’t look), a woman I admire like Rihanna or Anna, reduced to a pair of waxy breasts made by some special effects guy in the Valley, it makes me feel sad and unsafe and worried for the teenage girls who watch this and may not understand that grainy roving camera as the stuff of snuff films.”
While Kardashian and the rest of the Kardashian-Jenner clan turned out in support of the Life of Pablo rapper, she has thus far remained mum in the flood of criticism against her husband, instead focusing on what the coming months will bring.
“We’re shooting [season 13 of Keeping Up With the Kardashians],” she told WWD. “I would love a vacation, but I don’t think I’m going to get one this summer. My husband starts his tour, so we’re going to do that with the babies. His tour is supereasy. He does a few weeks, and then he’s home for a few weeks. It’ll be fun.”
