An unprecedented and intimate account of one of the most business-savvy, influential and defining public icons of our time

Kim Kardashian is a self-made mogul, social media genius, fashion icon and unlikely advocate for criminal justice reform. But she is also dismissed as a figure of scandal, spectacle and reality television. The truth is more complicated - and revealing.

Stylish, incisive and deeply reported, Citizen Kim is a portrait of a woman we think we know. Born into an Armenian American family in Beverly Hills and marked early by proximity to tragedy and notoriety, Kim’s sense of ambition was evident from the start. She rose from Paris Hilton’s assistant and shopgirl extraordinaire to tabloid fixation, reality-television star, and ultimately the luminary of a new celebrity economy - an ascent that reveals how precisely she understood the culture she would come to create in her image.

Drawing on interviews with dozens of Kim’s closest friends, family members and associates, the book shows how the Kardashians and American culture have been in conversation for decades - feeding, shaping and amplifying each other. Equal parts cultural history, high-fashion chronicle and intimate family study, Citizen Kim is a dazzling, whip-smart exploration of one of the most influential - and misunderstood - figures of our time, and the world that made her superstardom possible.

'Citizen Kim is the kind of intelligent and incisive book that comes along when a great journalist finds his perfect subject. Irresistible.' - Anna Wintour

© Jonathan Van Meter 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026