Kris Jenner may have built a family empire, but Khloé Kardashian is now admitting the whole thing started with a sales pitch that sounded a lot less glamorous than reality TV history.
During a recent interview, Khloé revealed that she and sisters Kim and Kourtney Kardashian were not exactly eager to jump into filming ‘Keeping Up with the Kardashians’ when the opportunity first came along. In fact, she said Kris had to sell it to them in a very specific way. The hook was not fame. It was business.
“And how my mom conned us into doing it was, she said, ‘Think of it as a commercial for the store,’” Khloé said. At the time, the sisters were focused on building Dash, their clothing boutique in Calabasas, and that was where their energy was.
Khloé Says Kris Jenner Sold the Show as a Dash Ad
Before the cameras, Khloé said Dash was a full grind. She and Kourtney were doing everything themselves, with no staff to help. “We had no employees. It was just me and Kourt,” she said. “We had not one employee. We didn’t know what the hell we were doing.”
That raw start is what makes her latest admission hit. The show that turned the Kardashians into one of the most famous families in pop culture was, at least at first, pitched to them as a way to get more eyes on their store. And they bought into the trick for their business. Khloé made it clear that Dash was the real priority then, not becoming reality stars.
She also explained how the boutique got off the ground in the first place. After their father, Robert Kardashian, died, the sisters used a credit card that had been opened in his name and discovered it had a $50,000 limit. That became their starting money. “We [didn’t] know a thing about buying, we [didn’t] know a thing about location,” Khloé said.
Dash Helped Launch an Empire Before It All Ended
As ‘Keeping Up with the Kardashians’ exploded, Dash grew with it. The brand eventually expanded to Los Angeles, New York City, and Miami Beach, and even got its own spin-off, ‘Dash Dolls’, in 2015.
But the store did not last forever. In 2018, the family shut Dash down after nearly 12 years. Kim Kardashian later said the sisters had reached a point where they could no longer give the business the attention it needed while balancing motherhood, work, and their own fast-growing brands.
Dash also faced legal trouble during its run. In 2016, the store was sued by a man who alleged the website discriminated against blind users because it was not compatible with screen-reader software. The suit argued that the site violated federal accessibility laws and asked the court to require changes and cover legal costs.
Still, the biggest takeaway from Khloé’s latest comment is simple. One of the most famous reality shows in modern TV history apparently began because Kris Jenner framed it as a glorified ad for a family clothing store. And somehow, that pitch worked.
