When Kim Kardashian first became interested in criminal reform, what surprised her most was how easily she was able to help free Alice Marie Johnson, making “a few phone calls” to do what the legal system does in “10, 20 years.”
Sitting with CNN’s Poppy Harlow during the Time100 Summit on Tuesday, the mogul went long on her passionate efforts in criminal justice reform.
“When I met Alice, I felt like it was a fairly easy experience for me, when I know it shouldn’t be, to get someone out,” Kardashian said, recounting her time working on the release of Johnson, who was given a life sentence for her involvement in a cocaine trafficking operation in 1996. “It takes 10, 20 years to do what I did in six months. And I didn’t realize the fight at that time. To me, that was a few phone calls. That really struck me that, you know, however it was done, it was done. I’m so grateful. But the system, that process has to change.”
During her time at the Time100 Summit, Kardashian opened up about her recent shift in priorities. Known as one of the most famous people in the world, the influencer and business mogul is next eyeing a career in law. Kardashian has already passed the baby bar in California — also known as the First-Year Law Students’ Examination — and is currently being mentored by human rights attorneys Jessica Jackson and Erin Haney.
“You are always in the spotlight, and yet you care most about people who are never in the spotlight,” Harlow said. “You care most about people that we as a society have thrown away.”
Watch a snippet of her interview with Harlow below.
Kardashian, who is also acting in the near future as part of Ryan Murphy’s “American Horror Story” franchise, credited becoming a mom as a main reason for her career shift, saying, “you get to a point where you have experiences that just change you.” She also told Harlow that she “would be just as happy being an attorney full time” as she would being a full-time celebrity.
“I always joke with my mom, who is my manager. I say, ‘Kim K is retiring, and I’m just going to be an attorney. So you can go help my siblings,” Kardashian said.
Kardashian was key to Johnson’s release. In 2018, the superstar and former president Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner approached the president, asking him to grant Johnson clemency. Later that year, Johnson was released, and in 2020, she was given a full pardon.
Kardashian said that she saw Trump go from being “hard on crime to opening his heart” after hearing Johnson’s story. She also praised his criminal justice bill, the First Step Act, which aims to reform federal prisons and sentencing laws.
Kardashian has yet to meet with President Biden but said that she would “love” a meeting in the Oval Office to discuss criminal reform.
Moving forward, Kardashian believes her role is to explain “what people have been through to hopefully change the bigger picture.”
“I will always believe that people are deserving of second chances,” she said.
Watch Kim Kardashian’s conversation with Harlow in the video above.