If there’s one thing the Kardashians know how to do better than anyone else, it’s break the internet.
Six years on from Kim Kardashian-West’s Paper magazine cover, which promised to do just that, there’s almost never been a week without a controversial Kardashian-Jenner-filled headline. In the past two weeks alone, both Kardashian-West and her younger sister, Kendall Jenner, have come under fire for hosting extravagant birthday celebrations: the former, on a private island in Tahiti during a pandemic travel ban, and the latter, a Halloween-themed celebrity-filled club party, which was leaked to Instagram, despite a social media ban.
For Kardashian-West’s 40th, her husband, Kanye West, went all out with his present, gifting his wife a hologram video of her late father, Robert. In new footage that Kardashian-West shared overnight, the mother-of-four sobs as she sees the hologram for the first time, sitting in between her sisters, Khloe and Kourtney, who are both also in tears at the sight of their dad, who died of esophageal cancer in 2003.
In the clip, Kardashian-West has her husband on FaceTime as she watches the hologram, telling him tearfully afterwards, “Thank you for that. Seriously, thank you. I can’t wait to see it again.”
For my birthday, Kanye got me the most thoughtful gift of a lifetime. A special surprise from heaven. A hologram of my dad. ✨🤍 It is so lifelike! We watched it over and over, filled with emotion. pic.twitter.com/jD6pHo17KC
— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) October 29, 2020
When Kardashian-West initially shared her birthday present publicly, people quickly pointed out that despite it being, no doubt, thoughtful, how… hilarious? chaotic? wild? it was that West had scripted the hologram to say that she had married “the most, most, most, most, most genius man in the whole world, Kanye West.”
Whether this is peak narcissist or West being actually kind of funny for once is up for debate, with some people certain that even he couldn’t be so tone-deaf as to make a dead person who he’s never met compliment him. But when the man literally just tried to run for President of the United States, like, a month before the election, who can say what’s going on?
Others took issue with the fact that, once again, “Kim, there’s people that are dying.” During a global pandemic and economic crisis, is it really the time to share a ludicrously extravagant, expensive gift publicly, especially one so personal? Though we don’t know how much West spent on the gift, it’s safe to say it wouldn’t have been cheap.
In the past, stars like Tupac, Frank Sinatra, and Elvis Presley have all been turned into holograms and in 2012, MTV revealed the hologram of Tupac cost between $100,000 and $400,000.
kim heard your feedback about boasting of her wealthy private island vacation during a pandemic where your loved ones are dying and said ok here is a hologram of my dead loved one that my wealthy husband bought me
— David Mack (@davidmackau) October 30, 2020
Whether West’s present was a bit weird – and definitely more so if he was being serious about the genius part – Kardashian-West seemed to be incredibly moved by the gesture. “I can’t even describe what this meant to me and my sisters, my brother, my mom and closest friends to experience together,” she wrote on Twitter. “Thank you so much Kanye for this memory that will last a lifetime.”
Oh, to be a Kardashian.
