Kim Kardashian West took to social media earlier this week to deny a shocking story, printed on the women’s news site, Refinery29, that she gifted her children celebrity memorabilia for Christmas, including the blood-soaked shirt taken off President John F. Kennedy’s body following his assassination.
Monday night, Kardashian West tweeted, “WOW this is obviously fake! I did not get JFK’s shirt. That is a sick joke that someone tweeted as a fake ig story that I never posted.”
Kardashian West did purchase a pair of items once worn by Michael Jackson at auction recently — a hat worn by the late star in his famous, extended-length music video for the song, “Smooth Criminal,” and a velvet jacket that Jackson wore to one of Elizabeth Taylor’s lavish birthday parties. The two pieces, purchased at an auction, cost Kardashian West a whopping $65,000. She gifted both pieces to her daughter, North West, at Christmas.
“For Christmas, Kanye and I gave North this jacket and this was Michael Jackon’s jacket that he wore with Elizabeth Taylor. And North is a really big Michael Jackson fan and we knew she would love this…” the reality star said in an Instagram story posted on Christmas day. “We had it tacked up so she can wear it, and the sleeves are half tacked up so when she gets older we can untack this sleeve and it can grow with her and she can have this for her whole life.”
“And she’s so grateful and so excited,” Kardashian West added.
But an enterprising faker, posing as the reality star, crafted a third Instagram post announcing a Kardashian West “purchase,” featuring a torn and blood-soaked men’s button-down shirt that the faker identified as the shirt worn by JFK when he was shot in Dallas, Texas, in November of 1963.
Refinery29, sensing an opportunity to critique Kardashian West, penned an extended editorial on the subject of North West’s gifts, taking aim at both the Michael Jackson memorabilia — “But is it appropriate for a child to wear an alleged rapist’s clothing?” — and the bloody shirt. “What is North West going to do with JFK’s bloody shirt,” the site asked, “and why isn’t it in a museum?”
Weirdly, the magazine went on to suggest that the gifts could serve North West well in helping her build a “hell of a fashion archive.”
As happens with Internet things that seem to good to be true, the fake was soon discovered. Refinery29 quickly apologized, but not before the story made its way on to social media: “This story has been updated from the original version. Earlier, it included a falsified Instagram image, which has been removed.”
This one of the weirder situations that has dogged Kardashian West this year, even given Kardashian West’s strange story arc that saw her move from a reality television star to a vocal and extremely effective advocate for criminal justice reform, and her husband, Kanye, move from rapper and fashion magnate to bestselling Christian artist and prison outreach minister. West spent the weekend celebrating the one year anniversay or his “reversion” working with a group of homeless individuals.