Over the course of her time in the spotlight, Kim Kardashian has been caught up in just about every kind of celebrity scandal you can imagine.
So we’re a bit surprised to find ourselves writing about an item of Kim-related gossip that no one ever even imagined!
You already know her as a reality star, fashion designer, one-woman media empire, and mother of four.
Now, prepare to meet Kim Kardashian, international art thief!
Yes, federal agents have seized a $750,000 shipment that arrived at the Port of Los Angeles under Kim’s name.
The shipment included 40 pieces of antiques and furniture, including an Ancient Roman statue referred to in documents as “Fragment of Myron’s Samian Athena, Limestone, Roman, 1st – 2nd century A.D.”
The whole shebang was addressed to “Kim Kardashian dba Noel Roberts Trust.”
Naturally, Kim has denied any knowledge of or involvement with the shipment.
“Kim never purchased this piece and this is the first that she has learned of its existence,” a spokesperson for the reality star said in a statement. “We believe it may have been purchased using her name without authorization and because it was never received, she was unaware of the transaction.”
“We encourage an investigation and hope that it gets returned to the rightful owners.”
We’re inclined to believe her, as Kim is a billionaire, and probably wasn’t looking to add “international art smuggler” to her resumé.
But even so, it’s interesting that the former Mrs. Kardashian-West now finds herself at the center of a bizarre investigation that’s been going on for three years.
In 2018, an archeologist from Italy’s Ministry of Cultural Heritage declared that the statue had been “looted, smuggled and illegally exported from Italy.”
The statue was seized in LA right around the time that Kim and Kanye were renovating their Calabasas mansion.
(The renovations went on for years, and Kim and Yeezy wound up barely ever living in the place together. Talk about a tragedy worthy of the Ancients!)
Now, Kim and Kanye did have some wildly pricey ancient artifacts in their home, because of course they did.
But they claimed to have imported their millennia-old statue legally.
And this was proven by a receipt that described a whole statue — the stolen one is just a fragment, consisting of the bottom half of a woman.
“The November 2012 Galerie Chenel invoice did not appear to be for the defendant statute because the term ‘a large draped statue’ would refer to an entire/whole draped natural sized statue and a ‘fragment of Myron Samian Athena’ would refer to only a portion of a statue, which is what defendant statue is,” court documents read.
Yes, in an ironic twist, Kim does not have a statue of a world-famous booty in her home.
Hopefully, once her divorce from Kanye is finalized and she’s got a little more time on her hands, Kim will devote herself to tracking down this statue and buying it.
Surely, we can all agree that the ancient ‘donk should share a roof with the world’s most revered living backside.