Kris Jenner . . . And All Things Kardashian (5 page)

“Kris!” I heard him calling from downstairs. I looked at Robert, and Robert looked at me.
Oh, shit
. We were so busted. We flew to our feet, but we were stuck upstairs in Anthony’s town house. And we are not talking about the Taj Mahal here—it wasn’t a big place.
How are we getting out of here?
I thought. We couldn’t jump out of a second-story window. I couldn’t hide Robert in the closet. Thank God we had our clothes on.

“Let’s make a run for it!” I said, and we went running down the stairs, right past Anthony, and headed for the front door. It was stupid and immature of me to think we could get away with that.

“What are
you
doing here?” Anthony yelled at Robert.

I stopped, turned around, and I answered, “Oh, this is my friend Bob.”

“What are you doing here, man?” Anthony repeated, and he and Robert got into it. Anthony started to grab Robert, and I immediately realized Robert was not a fighter. He was standing there in his designer jeans, Gucci loafers, and a gorgeous Gucci sweater with an anchor knitted into it. Anthony grabbed the sweater first.

“Don’t touch the sweater!” Robert screamed. “It’s my brother’s!”
He had stolen his brother’s brand-new Gucci sweater out of his closet to wear for our big first date, not thinking he might get attacked by a really pissed-off professional golfer while wearing it. Anthony didn’t give a damn. He grabbed the sweater and ripped it, stretching it out terribly and ruining it. Robert just broke away and went hauling down the street, running for his life.

I ran past Anthony, grabbed my car keys from the front table, jumped in my little red Mazda, locked the doors, and took off after Robert. When I reached him, we were both shaking. “Get in the car! Get in the car!” I yelled. He hopped in, and we could see Anthony in the rearview mirror, chasing us down the street.

“I am never coming back here again,” Robert said.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” I said. I was so upset. I thought he would never speak to me again. I had told him that Anthony and I weren’t getting along, but I never meant to put him in such a situation.

“Where do you want to go?” I asked him.

“Just take me to the airport,” Robert said. “When you get things straightened out with this guy, or decide what you want to do, we’ll talk. But that was scary.”

I dropped him off and he flew back to L.A. I didn’t hear from him again for a really long time. He had probably never been in a fight in his life before that night.

T
hat same year, on Easter Sunday evening of 1975, I was standing in the kitchen at Anthony’s house when the phone rang. It was my paternal grandfather.

“I have some really bad news,” he said. “Your dad’s been in a terrible accident, and he didn’t make it.”

He told me the awful details: He was with his girlfriend in his vintage yellow Porsche—his pride and joy—and was run off the
road by a jackknifed semitruck in a remote, deserted area of Mexico. A group of nuns found the wreckage by the side of the road and took him to the closest medical facility. My father’s girlfriend survived, but he suffered severe internal injuries. He was only forty-two years old.

I screamed, dropped the phone, and was just crying, crying, crying, hysterically crying. A few nights before, my father had called me. “I’m going to Mexico for Easter break and I’m taking my girlfriend. I would love to see you tonight, honey. Are you busy?” he asked. I hadn’t been busy, but I was tired. When I told him that, he said, “It’s okay, I’ll just see you when I get back. It’s fine.” And now he was dead. He was the first significant person in my life who had died, and when he had wanted to spend time with me, I had blown him off.

It was an important lesson about love. Love your family; try to do as much as you can. I think that’s why I’m always trying to burn the candle at both ends now. I want to be there for my family and for my loved ones, and if somebody needs me or wants to be with me, I feel really bad or guilty if I can’t be there for them. You never know when it might be the last time you see somebody.

My dad was a lot of fun. He liked to have a good time. He was very social. I remember that one time when I was a teenager he invited me up to spend the weekend with him in Long Beach. He took me to Venice Beach, and he thought that was so cool. He would always try to think of the cool thing to do that would help him relate to me at whatever particular age I was at the time. I was probably sixteen and I had just started driving when he invited me to come up and see his place that weekend. I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but when I look back at that moment, I realize how much thought he put into where he could take me instead of just maybe another movie or a dinner. He wanted to make sure I had a good time.

My father was cremated.

At the funeral, I remember someone told me that my paternal grandmother had seen his body the day before. I thought,
Nobody asked me if I wanted to see him one last time.
That hurt. Not just that I wasn’t asked, but that they seemed to view me as a child. My mom took us to the funeral and I remember how strong she was in supporting my sister and me.

I found myself thinking about how much I wished my dad had met Robert Kardashian. He had begun calling again. I didn’t know what to do. I was still engaged to Anthony and I didn’t know how to juggle the two.

“Maybe we should get together,” Robert would say, and I would hem and haw and answer, “Maybe we should. I’d love to see you. But let’s see what happens.”

We would make a plan. But every time I would cancel at the last minute. “I just can’t come,” I would say in a phone call the night before or the morning of the planned rendezvous. I came up with the stupidest excuses. I had a toothache or whatever, but how many toothaches can one person have? When I ran out of teeth, I told him I had sprained my ankle or I had the flu. It became ridiculous.

The whole situation came to a head when Anthony was invited to play in the British Open. Tom Watson was playing there, too, and he and his wife, Linda, had rented a house on the golf course in England. “Why don’t you and Anthony get married in our backyard here?” Tom and Linda told us. “How much fun would that be!” they said. “That’s a great idea!” Anthony replied. I was thinking,
Not so much.

I didn’t want to marry Anthony. We eventually decided that perhaps a European wedding without my family wasn’t such a great idea. Still, I was up for the trip.

Right before I left for Europe, Robert called me and said,
“I bought a new house in Beverly Hills, and my brother and I are having a housewarming party. I would really like you to be my date, and it’s really important to me that you give me a yes or a no.”

At that point I had decided that I was going to break things off with Anthony in Europe and see if I wanted to date Robert after doing that. I told Robert about my plan to break up with Anthony in Europe and come home by myself, and told him, yes, I would be his date to his big, important party.

He immediately told everyone he knew that he had met a fabulous girl and she would be his date to his housewarming party. But once I was in Europe with Anthony, I couldn’t figure out how to get out of there. I had no backbone. I couldn’t figure out how to tell Anthony it was over and that I was going home on my own. Finally, the day of Robert’s party came, and instead of meeting him on the 5:00 p.m. plane from San Diego to Los Angeles as I had promised, I was still in Europe with Anthony. I didn’t even have the guts to call Robert and tell him I wasn’t coming.

Robert was at the airport waiting for me, standing at the gate with two dozen red roses. He waited until every single person came off that plane before giving up on me. He turned around, walked to the trash can, and threw the roses away. He walked to his car alone and cried all the way home.

At his party, he had to face all his friends who were expecting to meet this great new girl he had told them all about. I had made him look like a fool. He didn’t have a girlfriend, he didn’t have a date. This was his big, huge party, and I had blown him off.

I was so young, and I had a lot to learn. When I called him the next day to say “I’m so, so sorry,” I could hear him crying on the other end of the line. “I just don’t know what to do.”

Suddenly he turned angry. “You embarrassed me,” he said. “You made me look bad. When you finally figure this all out, give me a call.”

Then he hung up.

I returned from Europe with Anthony, still unable to figure out how to call things off. Fortunately, Anthony made it easy for me. His next tournament was in Pebble Beach. I went with him and took my parents, and after the tournament I left with my parents for a trip down the coast to the Hearst Castle. Anthony couldn’t come along, he said, because he had to get to the next city on the tour.

When I got back to his house, though, I received a letter in the mail. Inside was a hotel receipt from Carmel showing that Anthony had stayed in Carmel four days longer than he had told me. Then a young woman started calling the house, looking for Anthony. She wanted to know who I was and why I was answering his phone. “Who the hell are
you
?” I asked. She told me she had spent four days with Anthony in Carmel, after which he left for his next golf tournament. Now she couldn’t find him. He wasn’t returning her phone calls. She was pissed, which was why she called me.

I was
so
mad, but also glad. Now I had a backup plan. I had been too weak to break up with him. Now Anthony had made things easy for me. I packed my bags and put everything in my car, thinking,
I wasn’t raised to be a victim. I was raised to be a strong, confident girl who knows when it is time to fold ’em.
I waited until he came home, and when he walked through the door, I told him that we were done, and I told him why. He denied, denied, denied.

“I really don’t care,” I said. “I’m out of here.”

I went to my mother’s house and called Robert. “It’s over, I’m done,” I said.

“Okay, if you’re done, then why don’t you come see me this weekend?”

“Great. I’ll be there,” I said.

I got dressed, got on a plane, and flew to L.A., where I rushed
out of the airport to meet Robert Kardashian for our first legitimate date. Sitting in a green Mercedes, waiting for me at the curb at the airport, were Robert and O.J. Simpson.

“This is O.J., my best friend,” Robert told me, introducing me to the famous football player, while I’m thinking,
Oh my God. Oh my GOD!
We drove back to Robert’s house in Beverly Hills: Robert Kardashian, O.J. Simpson, and me.

CHAPTER THREE

Flying High

R
obert and his brother, Tommy, had bought a beautiful house on Deep Canyon Drive in Beverly Hills. It had a tennis court and a swimming pool, and they were living
the life
. Judy Wilder, a really well-known interior designer, decorated the house. If you had your house decorated by Judy Wilder, you were stylin’. Tommy ran the family meatpacking business, and Robert was an attorney with a group of Armenian lawyers, Eamer, Bedrosian & Kardashian. He worked with all kinds of people, including O.J. Simpson.

Robert took me back to his house and showed me around, and then he took me to his mother’s house, where I met his mother and practically his entire family. I could not believe what a nice family he had and what wonderful family values they embodied. They loved one another so much. His mother had made this thing called
beeshee
, an Armenian breakfast pastry. It’s a big, flat, fried pancake with sugar or syrup on top. My daughter Kourtney got the recipe from Robert’s mother before she died, and now we make it
for family occasions. It’s one of my most favorite things in the world now because of the strong family values it represents. Plus, it’s absolutely delicious.

So Robert’s mom had made
beeshee
, and they had people and friends stopping in to meet me. Afterward, we went back to Robert’s house and I met a few more of his friends as well as his brother Tommy’s friends. It was a turning point. I thought,
This could very well be the guy for me.

Every weekend for three weeks after that, I flew up to visit Robert. That first weekend, I met his friends and his parents, and had the time of my life. The second weekend, I met more of his friends and stayed at his house. The third weekend, he sat me on his lap on the chair behind his bedroom desk and said, “Will you marry me?”

“What?!” I said.

“Will you marry me?” he repeated.

I stammered something to the effect of “I don’t think I can marry you right now. I mean, it’s kind of soon.”

He was beyond upset; he was devastated. When I said no, Robert’s face just fell. He had me sitting on his lap and he was so excited. He had experienced this revelation that he had finally found the love of his life, and I just didn’t understand. I later learned that he had told all his friends and colleagues about me, telling them that I looked like Natalie Wood. (I found that funny!) Now I was making him look bad, because I was refusing his proposal. But I had just been through this crazy thing with Anthony, and I wasn’t ready to jump back into another engagement so soon. After all, I wasn’t even twenty.

Robert and I continued dating, but he was angry and took serious issue with me for declining his marriage proposal. I returned to San Diego and decided that I was going to take control of my life. I started by deciding to apply to become an American Airlines
flight attendant instead of going to college. The only part of high school I enjoyed was the social aspect. I was just not into school. I wanted to get on with my life.

Within a week, I applied for, interviewed for, was offered, and accepted a job. American immediately flew me to Fort Worth, Texas, to begin six weeks of flight attendant school.

Robert wasn’t happy. He took it personally and believed that by turning him down and preparing to fly off into the sunset with American, I was slamming his character and who he was as a human being. I still felt like I had made the right decision, and I certainly didn’t think he would jump back into the dating scene immediately. When I flew away, he began dating someone else right away:
Priscilla Presley.