They were clearly very much in love and, as sometimes happens in those circumstances, they became foolhardy and indiscreet. Todd was like a trophy boyfriend, always on Kris’s arm at celebrity parties and barbecues. She was behaving like a woman obsessed. She was seeing so much of Todd, even taking a skiing holiday with him, that his mother Ilza thought Kris and Robert were already separated: ‘She wouldn’t talk about her husband with me. If she did, I would have said, “What are you doing coming after my young son, with all these kids?”’
Not surprisingly, Robert became suspicious. He kept seeing Todd in the company of his wife, especially at the house, where they would play tennis together. Todd amusingly recalled that on one occasion Robert decided to umpire their game and kept calling foot faults against him.
More seriously, Robert hired a private detective to follow his wife to the modest apartment in Studio City, which she and Todd were using as a love nest. The inevitable clash with Robert is another incident that the two lovers remember differently. She recalled that it was in a restaurant in Beverly Hills, where they were having a cosy breakfast together. Todd said they were pulling out of his garage in an open-topped Jeep, when Robert dashed up in a convertible Mercedes, jumped out and started swinging a golf club at the back of the car. Todd was all in favour of stopping and confronting Robert, but Kris was worried that her distraught husband might have a gun, so the two vehicles set off on a high-speed car chase through Beverly Hills, which ended when Todd swerved into another road.
Todd, who only came forward in 2012 after he featured as Ryan in Kris’s book, was concerned for his personal safety, especially after a phone call he claims he received from O. J. Simpson warning him to stay away from Kris. O. J. apparently invited Todd over to his house to discuss things further – an invitation he had no trouble turning down.
One of the cruel ironies of the affair was that Kris paid for almost everything. But she, by her own admission, had no money. She was using credit cards that were paid for by her husband. The first thing Robert did on discovering the affair and deciding on a divorce was to cancel all of Kris’s credit cards. The financial implications would eventually lead to bitter and acrimonious divorce proceedings.
The whole sorry saga was shaping up like a bad episode of Dynasty (or a good one, depending on whether you were living it or just watching). To her credit, Kris hasn’t tried to justify her behaviour other than to acknowledge how unbearably miserable she had become in her marriage. The shattering effect her affair had on her family, particularly the two eldest girls, became clear when divorce papers were revealed in Star magazine in the US and published in America and the UK.
The most heartbreaking incident occurred in May 1990, when Kimberly, as they called her then, found her mother crying after a ‘brutal’ conversation with Robert. He was so emotionally distraught by what was happening that he would call Kris some horrible names whenever they tried to speak to one another. In her statement, Kris said, ‘She became so upset I had a difficult time getting her to her [school] carpool on time.’ She added that Kim called twice that afternoon begging her to come home. Clearly the young girl was worried that her mother was going to leave them.
Khloé, being that much younger than her sisters, seemed fine with Todd and would happily sit in the back seat of the car if he was going out to lunch with her mother. He thought she was smart and ‘just the cutest kid’.
Robert moved out of Tower Lane, leaving Kris to manage on her own. In the divorce papers, her sworn statement details what she termed was a ‘luxury lifestyle’. The mortgage payment on the house alone was $15,000 a month and then there were wages for the gardener, a maid and a housekeeper, as well as $800 a month to pay for the children’s clothing and $2,000 a month for herself. Credit card debts on various store cards had grown to more than $21,000.
The unhappiness that both Robert and Kris were feeling didn’t end with her sailing off into the sunset with Todd – far from it. At first, they carried on in much the same way. If Robert was looking after the children at the weekend, she would drift over to the apartment in Studio City to see Todd. Reading between the lines of her account, the enormity of what she had done – giving up what was so important to her life, the privilege and luxury of what Robert provided in Beverly Hills, for sex in a tiny bachelor flat – began to affect her.
She finally realised she had made a ‘ginormous’ mistake when she arrived at Todd’s apartment unexpectedly and discovered him in bed with a girl he had met in a bar. It was, apparently, a one-night stand. ‘I think I got busted,’ recalled Todd 20 years later, although he didn’t remember the exact circumstances.
Though they split up soon after, there is little doubt that they genuinely cared for one another. Todd told the Daily Mail that he was heartbroken when their relationship ended, but he knew that it would never have worked in the long term. He observed, ‘Sometimes you stop something not because you stop caring, but because it isn’t practical.’ At that point in his career, he couldn’t give Kris anything like the life she was used to and that was before you factored in the age difference. They both ended up with nothing to show for the pain and the passion.
It wouldn’t be the last time Kris enjoyed the obvious benefits of a younger male companion, but she vowed that never again would she be so vulnerable financially. It was a lesson she vigorously taught her children – Kim in particular.
Both Todd and Kris have since regretted the heartache their relationship caused Robert and the children. Todd could see how badly Kourtney, the eldest, was affected. She struggled to accept what had happened and certainly didn’t want anyone to replace her dad. It may or may not have affected her attitude to marriage but, at 36, she has yet to say, ‘I do’. Kim, on the other hand, appeared to deal with it more easily, but had married three times by the age of 33.
She has said that at the time she was more troubled by the size of her growing breasts, and would sit in the bathtub praying to God that they wouldn’t get any bigger. For a girl in the fourth grade, who had only just turned 10, one can understand her embarrassment, especially at school, where there was always some wise guy kid happy to twang the strap of her training bra. It didn’t help that her big sister would tease her mercilessly. The bath prayer didn’t work. She was a C cup at the age of 13.
More serious were the health concerns of their beloved grandmothers. Both Robert and Kris’s mothers faced grave problems that weren’t helped by the cataclysmic events in their children’s lives. Helen Kardashian had a stress-related stroke and Mary Jo Shannon was battling cancer. Fortunately, they both pulled through and the grandkids had many more happy times with them.
Just when it seemed that things couldn’t get any worse for Kris or her children, she went on a blind date that changed her life. The meeting with former Olympic champion Bruce Jenner was arranged by one of her close friends, Candace Garvey. She was the wife of Steve Garvey, one of the superstar baseball players with the Los Angeles Dodgers, known during his career as ‘Mr Clean’. Steve and Bruce were on the celebrity sporting circuit together. They were always bumping into each other at the various tennis, golf or fishing tournaments they were forever being invited to.
Candace obviously thought, quite rightly, that Bruce needed smartening up and that the fashion-conscious Kris Kardashian would be a perfect match. Bruce wasn’t so sure, until he discovered his date had four children, just like he did.
They met for the first time at the Riviera Country Club, where Bruce was playing in a golf tournament. He was immediately smitten by his vivacious companion, who was a good listener. The casual meeting led to dinner that first night, with Bruce pouring his heart out. ‘I’m 40 years old,’ he told her, ‘and I’ve never been in love.’
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Rather like her mother in 1976, Kim