Kim Kardashian was named GQ magazine’s Man of the Year for 2023. Kim has assumed the man’s role in her single-parent household since divorcing Kanye West in 2022.
In the cover photo, Kim wears an oversized black pinstripe suit designed by The Row, a white pinstripe button-down shirt by Brioni, and a black and white tie by Paul Stuart. She was styled by Stella Greenspan.
In the cover story, Kim described how her late father, Robert Kardashian, continues to shape her life’s journey.
Robert, an attorney, was best known as part of O.J. Simpson’s winning defense team in his murder trial in 1994.
Kim, 43, is intent on becoming a lawyer like her father. She’s studying law while single-handedly raising her four children – daughters North, 10, and Chicago, 5, and sons Saint, 7, and 4-year-old Psalm.
Rather than attend a traditional law school, Kim is studying with legal tutors in the hopes of passing the California Bar Examination one day.
However, Kim has struggled to pass the so-called “baby bar” exam, which she has taken four times.
According to GQ, Kim tries to study 2 or 3 hours a day and she hopes to take the real bar exam late next year or early 2025.
Kim tells GQ her mission is to help inmates who were wrongfully convicted by a justice system that disproportionately targets Black males.
She has already helped to secure the commutation of several prisoners’ sentences and the passage of the 2018 bipartisan First Step Act, designed to reduce excessive sentences.
When asked how she answers her children’s questions about her divorce, Kim said:
“Ultimately, what matters is that kids feel loved and heard. You want to be sensitive because they’re just kids, and it’s hard to go through no matter what age. You have to make sure that you only go to a level that they can understand. It’s okay to show a vulnerable side. You never go to a negative side.”
Despite being a good mom, Kim realizes her limitations as a female raising two boys. She recently hired a male nanny to be a strong influence for her son, Saint. “I really wanted a man around him,” she said.
At the time of the GQ interview and photo shoot, Kim’s four children were in Italy visiting with their father, Ye, and stepmother, Bianca Censori.
Kim said she spoke with a therapist after the divorce — but only for advice on raising her kids as both a mother and father.
“I do have a therapist that only deals in child psychology that I talk to to get parenting tips and advice,” Kim said. “Sometimes I feel challenged by parenting. But I have the best group of friends and we talk about everything together, so that to me is therapy. I hit the lottery, the f–king Mega Ball of friends.”
Kim said she also turns to psychics and mediums for advice and reassurance, despite her father’s dismissal of them.
“One is more of a spiritual healer putting out good vibes and energy,” she says. “When they tell me things, I’ll write them down. I don’t walk away thinking that I’m going to read the list and make sure that everything comes true. After a few days I’ll forget about it. Then six months after the fact, I will reread my notes from the session and it will have happened.”
Above all, Kim relies on her Christian faith. She reads Bible stories to her kids from the same books her father read to her and her siblings.
“I’m probably more religious than most people guess,” Kim says.
“That’s how I manage life. I look at everything as lessons. Things happen exactly the way that they are supposed to and take you exactly where you need to be. Even if it doesn’t make sense at the time, it’s leading you to a path.”
Kim references a meme where Jesus is pulling a small teddy bear away from a little girl but he holds a much larger teddy bear behind his back. “She doesn’t understand at the time, and she just wants her teddy bear. That’s so true in life,” Kim said.
