Kourtney Kardashian has explained why she took a break from her family’s famous reality TV series Keeping Up With the Kardashians (KUWTK).
Last fall, Kardashian announced that she was stepping back from the show, and in a cover interview for Vogue Arabia’s July/August issue, she said she was feeling “unfulfilled” after filming the show “non-stop for 14 years.”
“I have been filming the show non-stop for 14 years,” she said. “I was feeling unfulfilled, and it became a toxic environment for me to continue to have it occupy as much of my life as it was.
“Privacy is something I have come to value, and finding that balance of private moments with being on a reality show is hard,” the 41-year-old reality star said. “People have this misconception that I don’t want to work, which isn’t true. I am following my happiness and putting my energy into that which makes me happy.”
Kardashian noted that she is grateful for the opportunities that came along with being on the show, which first aired in 2007, but now she is focusing on her children Mason, 10, Reign, 5, and Penelope, 7, who she shares with ex-boyfriend Scott Disick.
“I always try my absolute best when I’m with my kids not to be on my phone, to be present in what we’re doing and have those moments where you’re looking in each other’s eyes and connecting,” Kardashian said.
“It’s so important. I usually take one day on the weekend when we have no plans, we hang out at the house in pyjamas or sweats. We sleep in. I like to not be on a schedule on that day.”
When Season 18 of KUWTK premiered in March, there was a scene where Kourtney and her sister Kim got into a physical fight because of Kourtney’s boundaries when it came to filming. Kim was upset because she and Khloe share their lives on the show, but Kourtney wanted to pick and choose what she decided to film.
(Kourtney and Kim’s fight is at the 2:13 mark.)
Kardashian spoke about that moment with Vogue, saying: “I don’t understand why there’s all this judgment about the way we each want to live our lives.”
“We should be accepted for what we each want to do. It’s not a positive environment for me to want to be in every day when I feel like they’re so critical of me,” she said. “Every day I’m coming in, I’m like, ‘Why am I choosing to be in this environment?’ And I think I just reached my point of not being able to tolerate it anymore.”