Kim Kardashian West's sexually explicit past — and arguably her first claim to fame — is still dogging her decades later. And it came by way of her soon-to-be ex-husband, Kanye West.
Ye, as West is now known, boasted in a Monday Hollywood Unlocked interview that he prevented a second Kardashian sex tape from coming out by retrieving a laptop from the beauty mogul's ex Ray J.
It purportedly contained more explicit footage of Kardashian and the musician. Ye said that he hand-delivered the laptop to Kardashian when she was hosting "Saturday Night Live" in October and claimed that she cried with relief when she saw it because "it represents how much she's been used."
"It represents how much people didn't love her, and they just saw her as a commodity," he said in the interview.
But Kardashian West's camp doesn't think there was ever a second sex tape to begin with. And, when addressing it, her spokesperson attempted to change the narrative around the ever-evolving "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" alum, who is one of four children late attorney Robert Kardashian had with famed "momager" Kris Jenner.
Ye apparently collected a computer and hard drive that were supposed to contain the original video and unseen footage from Kardashian West and Ray J's infamous 2002 romp in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Apparently, the recently retrieved footage turned out to be pretty innocuous.
"After review, there was nothing sexual unseen [on the computer], only footage on the plane on the way to Mexico and footage at a club and restaurant on the same trip," Kardashian West's rep said Wednesday in a statement to the Los Angeles Times.
"Kim remains firm in her belief that there is no new second tape that exists. After 20 years, she truly wishes to move on from this chapter with focus instead on the positive things she continues to do as a mother, entrepreneur and advocate for justice reform," the statement continued.
Indeed, Kardashian West has come a long way since her early days as Paris Hilton's bestie who spun her sex-tape notoriety into reality-TV gold.
Her 2007 sex tape, "Kim Kardashian, Superstar," used footage of Kardashian West and Ray J from that same trip to Cabo and became an adult-film hit. It catapulted the then-relatively unknown stylist to superstardom months before her family's reality series premiered on E!.
That same year, she sued Vivid Entertainment, which released the footage after obtaining it from a third party, for invasion of privacy. She later dropped the lawsuit and reportedly settled for $5 million, though some reports still contend that she continues to make a pretty penny off the tape.
And while her personal and love life often overshadow her professional pursuits, the 41-year-old has nevertheless built an undeniably influential brand in the worlds of fashion and beauty, business and occasionally politics. She's also an aspiring lawyer and advocate for prison reform.
Kardashian West remains nearly unavoidable online and in tabloids, currently fueling headlines for her relationship with "SNL" star Pete Davidson and for her outfits of the day.
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