Kourtney Kardashian Faces Backlash for Her Reaction to the California Wildfires in 'KUWTK' Clip
By Ryan Carroll
Although the members of the Kardashian-Jenner family are globe-trotting socialites and celebrities, they’re also people in a real place with real homes, and they’re subject to some of the same environmental concerns as everyone else. This week, however, Kourtney Kardashian has caught flak for being less-than-sensitive about one environmental event--the California Wildfires which took place in Nov. 2018.
The controversy emerged, according to Cosmopolitan, after E! released a new bonus clip from the latest season of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, which sees Kourtney, Kim Kardashian West, Khloé Kardashian, and their best friend Jonathan Cheban discussing the devastating event. While they recognized the severity of the fire, they seemed to approach the issue with a rather cavalier attitude.
To begin, Khloé expressed that she remembered Kourtney saying, “What’s going to happen is going to happen. Everything is replaceable.” Subsequently, Kourtney herself explained that, when her daughter Penelope asked whether or not their house would burn down, she said that "We can go anywhere. Let’s go to Italy. We can move to Italy. I was like, we can eat focaccia for the rest of our lives.”
Subsequently, Cosmopolitan reports, fans expressed frustration with Kardashian’s lack of self awareness, noting that the ability to drop one’s possessions and move to Italy was a privilege accessible to just wealthy people.
One YouTube commenter wrote, “Wow. There were literally people camping in Walmart parking lots starving in the aftermath of these fires and Kourtney’s like, let’s just move to Italy!” Another added, “Rich people conversation. Can’t relate.” And a third said, “Yes because you have money! If my house burns [I'm] homeless for the rest of my life.”
Although we’re sure that Kourtney had better intentions when making that comment, we can’t help but cringe watching the video--hopefully this will be a good opportunity for her to educate herself on her privilege, and even if the fire was not upsetting her, she could think about the less fortunate people it affected.