Does Kim Kardashian Get “Alone Time”?

It’s been a tough couple weeks for somehow famous Kim Kardashian, after her split with NFL star Reggie Bush at the end of July.  From most accounts, the two were very much in love, but simply couldn’t find time to fit each other into their busy schedules.  For Kim, this included appearing in terrible movies, making a workout DVD, being seen at places, getting on Dancing With The Stars, doing a Playboy spread, and of course “developing” (i.e. letting someone else develop for her and put her name on) her own perfume line.

Now, though, her sister Kourtney says, “[She] just needs alone time and [to] focus on herself.”  (Isn’t that what she’s been doing for two full years now?)  How does Kim Kardashian steal a few moments for herself and fly under the radar?  How about present at the Teen Choice Awards?  Or take red carpet pictures showing off her new hair color?  Or go to birthday parties for everyone remotely connected to her?  Or get photographed at a Dodgers game in team gear?  Sounds like she’s really carving out some “alone time.”

Kardashian is no stranger to the world of entertainment.  Her dad was Robert Kardashian, one of O.J. Simpson’s defense lawyers.  Her stepdad is Olympian Bruce Jenner.  Ray J, the semi-famous rapper with whom she made a notorious sex tape, is the younger brother of R&B star Brandy.  She knows, or should know, how fame works.  So excuse me if I find Ms. Kardashian’s quest for “alone time to focus on herself” a little disingenuous, even if the proclamation was issued by her sister.  On Ryan Seacrest’s morning radio show.

That’s the thing about the Hollywood spotlight: you can’t just shut it off when it becomes inconvenient.  The whole point of a reality TV show called Keeping Up With The Kardashians is to get people interested in even the most mundane details of your life.  When people do get interested, it’s in sickness and in health, in wealth and in poverty, in good times and in bad.  Especially in bad.  It’s so much more interesting to see Kim hold up or break down after a split with a pro athlete than it is to watch her talk to Khloe on her cell or down a smoked turkey-avocado sandwich at this month’s posh eatery.  If she really wanted some privacy, maybe she shouldn’t have said “yes” to every staged People photo shoot that shows her new bikini bod wooshing down a water slide.  Or maybe she should resist the urge to throw Blue Steel at every camera she passes.

Kim, you had your alone time.  It was birth through 18.  Then you—nobody else—decided you deserved more exposure than one episode of The Simple Life.  You got what you asked for, with a neat little monkey’s paw thrown in free.