Hardball! Khloé and Kim Gave Ultimatum: Us, or Blac Chyna.
- Kim Kardashian and Khloé Kardashian joined forces against Blac Chyna, according to newly-revealed messages they sent to studio execs in 2017.
- Both sisters are testifying in Chyna’s $100 million lawsuit blaming the Kardashian-Jenners for getting “Rob & Chyna” canceled.
- “We are even considering not moving forward” if ‘Rob & Chyna” continues, they had emailed execs.
Kim Kardashian and her little sister Khloé played hardball with studio executives back in 2017 — threatening to quit “Keeping Up With The Kardashians” unless Blac Chyna’s spinoff with their brother Rob Kardashian was canceled, according to emails presented to a Los Angeles jury Tuesday.
The ‘us or Chyna’ ultimatum was revealed as both sisters took the stand in Chyna’s $100 million lawsuit against the Kardashian-Jenner family.
Chyna is accusing the family of telling lies about her to studio executives in a successful vendetta that got “Rob & Chyna” canceled in 2017, costing her tens of millions of dollars.
Both Khloé and Kim testified
On Tuesday, the second day of the trial’s second week, Chyna’s lawyer called first Khloé Kardashian and then Kim Kardashian to the stand in quick succession, in hopes of showing jurors how far the sisters would go to send Chyna packing.
Both sisters were asked about a joint, January 11, 2017, email that they sent to Jeff Jenkins, a high-level producer at the time for both “KUWTK” and “Rob & Chyna,” and Amanda Weinstein, who solely worked on “KUWTK.”
“We are even considering not moving forward with ours if theirs continues,” the sisters had written — by “ours” meaning “Keeping Up With The Kardashians,” and by “theirs” meaning Chyna’s spinoff with Rob Kardashian.
“We feel strongly about canceling Rob and Chyna,” Khloé had said in the email.
Kim told execs ‘Chyna can never be on her show’
When Kim Kardashian took her turn on the witness stand, she was asked by Chyna lawyer Lynne Ciani about another text with family and studio bigs.
This one was sent by Kim to Weinstein and a second “KUWTK” producer on February 23, 2017. Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner was also on the thread, as was Khloé Kardashian.
“I’m going to officially take a break because I don’t want to do this anymore because this is so confusing,” Kim said in the message, referring to filming scenes with Chyna. “She can have no false hope that she’s on our show. Is she getting paid?”
Kim also told the producers “don’t shoot Chyna.”
“Chyna can never be on her show,” Kim asserted in the message, later telling the court that she meant “our” show as in KUWTK. “This message was clearly auto-dictated,” Kim told jurors.
Weeks later, ‘Rob & Chyna’ ends
Chyna is hoping to demonstrate a coordinated Kardashian vendetta — waged, as she claims, as payback after her violent split with sibling Rob Kardashian.
Just weeks after the two emails, “Rob & Chyna” was indeed done-for. In March 2017, the network exercised its option to not go forward, just four shows into taping the second season. None of the four episodes aired.
The emails may help demonstrate that members of the Kardashian family indeed joined forces to get Chyna out of their lives.
But so far, three reality TV executives have testified that the real reason the show was canceled was because the real-life Rob and Chyna had fought so viciously in late 2016, and again into 2017, that the two could barely stand to be in the same room.
“They were not even talking to each other,” former KUWTK producer Jeff Jenkins told jurors Friday.
Do the Kardashians owe her money?
Chyna must also prove that the Kardashian-Jenners cost her tens of millions of dollars in past and future earnings when the spinoff crashed and burned.
Jurors learned last week that Chyna pocketed a pre-negotiated $100,000 kill fee when the spinoff was canceled.
They also learned that since then, Chyna continues to support herself with $25,000-a-pop personal appearances and through her work on OnlyFans, where her personal page indicates that a $19.99 monthly fee entitles subscribers to her nude photos and other images of interest to what her site calls, “Foot Freaks.”
On the witness stand Thursday, Chyna had told jurors she believed she’d made in excess of $1 million through OnlyFans. But she also testified that she did not have a bank account, did not
for the past three years, and couldn’t substantiate her earnings.
The Kardashian-Jenner defendants have all testified
After Khloé Kardashian and Kim Kardashian testified Tuesday, they returned to their seats in the courtroom’s front row, where they sat with their sister Kylie Jenner and their mom Kris Jenner. All were dressed in black jackets and pants, save for Kim, whose pants suit was dark gray.
The four are all defendants in the lawsuit, and now have all been called to testify by Ciani. Together, they watched Tuesday as former E! Network president Adam Stotsky took the stand.
Ciani showed Stotsky documents indicating that the financing for “Rob & Chyna” had been greenlighted as of November 2016.
A month later, on December 15, 2016, the stars had a violent fight that has been at the center of the trial. Stotsky said it was the couple’s toxic relationship that killed the show from that point on, not any Kardashian family vendetta.
“We couldn’t produce a show if there was no couple,” he told jurors. “That kind of acrimony in a relationship, especially with a small child, was not something I wanted to be a part of,” he added. Chyna and Rob Kardashian share a now-5-year-old daughter, Dream.
Also Tuesday, jurors watched a deposition given by “Live with Kelly and Ryan” co-host Ryan Seacrest, who testified as a former executive producer of “KUWTK.”
Seacrest distanced himself from having control over spinoff shows, so he was not part of any decision to cancel or continue “Rob & Chyna.” But Ciani showed jurors a tweet Seacrest had posted on December 14, 2016, saying, “Congrats to my bro Rob Kardashian and Blac Chyna on having season 2 picked up! Can’t wait for the baby special.”
