On Alex Cooper’s “Call Her Daddy” podcast Wednesday, Kim Kardashian opened up in ways she never has before about the “toxic” side of her marriage to controversial rapper and fashion mogul Kanye West, including the time he was in “an episode” and sold five Lamborghinis they owned.
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Kardashian told Cooper about her efforts to be supportive after West’s first mental breakdown, but she said he was not “willing to make changes” that would be “healthy and beneficial” for him, her or their four children, according to People. West himself revealed that he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2018, following his hospitalization for a November 2016 “psychiatric emergency.”
“It makes it really hard to continue on in a relationship that can be toxic,” Kardashian told Cooper, according to People. “When you have kids, it’s definitely harder to leave than it is to stay. And it changes everyone’s life forever.”
When Cooper asked about the “breaking point” that finally prompted her to file for divorce in 2021, after seven years of marriage, Kardashian cited several issues, including West’s erratic financial decisions, which could have been related to a manic episode. The Skims fashion mogul said she didn’t feel safe in the way he handled money.
“Just not feeling safe, you know, not even physically, just like maybe emotionally or even, you know, financially,” Kardashian explained. “I would like come home, and we had like five Lamborghinis and I’d come home and they’d all be gone if he was in an episode. And I’d be like, ‘Oh, wait. Where’s all our cars? Like, my new car?’ And it would be like, oh, he gave them away to all of his friends.”
Kardashian also said she was troubled when West spoke out against her mother, Kris Jenner, and her four sisters. During West’s brief, ill-fated run for the presidency in the summer of 2020, he launched a barrage of erratic social media posts that claimed that his wife and mother-in-law were trying to get hm committed, saying their attempt to assert power over him was “white supremacy.” At a campaign rally, West also made false claims about abolitionist Harriet Tubman never freeing any slaves and tearfully revealed that he and Kardashian had contemplated aborting their oldest daughter, North West, then 7.
At the time, Kim Kardashian broke her silence to acknowledge her husband’s latest bipolar episode and called for “empathy and compassion.”
But Kardashian told Cooper that she became concerned about setting a positive example for their kids — North, 12, Saint, 9, Chicago, 7, and Psalm, 6 — by walking away. She and West finalized their divorce in 2022.
“Once my mental health starts to get affected and then I can’t parent the way that I need to and I can’t be present and focused, then there’s gotta be one of us that can,” the reality star explained. “And I had to save myself in order to be a better mom for everyone. And I think, like, when everyone’s older, they’ll be able to understand it and see that all.”
Ultimately though, Kardashian doesn’t see the marriage as a failure and doesn’t regret her time as West’s wife, telling Cooper: “An over-a-decade relationship with four beautiful children is not a failure.”