Kim Kardashian May Be Upset About Release of New Playboy Pictures, But Please Don’t Try to Convince Us She’s Surprised

Perhaps you thought you’d seen everything you could about Kim Kardashian, especially if you saw her 2007 Playboy photo shoot.   Kim apparently thought she had shown you everything she was willing to as well, until Playboy released another 25 previously unpublished frames from that same session to its Cyber Club members.  Kim is reportedly upset about the release of the new photos, thinking that no more of them would get out.

Kardashian may not garner a lot of sympathy, seeing as she has rarely shied away from the camera even when she professes to want “alone time,” but she has a right to control how her image is used.  And use it she has.  She has taken every opportunity to appear in and on magazines fully clothed, bikinied, and even fully unclothed.  Kim’s not new to this game.  I’d bet, however, that her Playboy contract allowed it to sell more of her nude photos at a later date at its discretion.  Given that Kim has made her fortune on her looks, she had to know that such pictures would be in high demand.  Anything of such prurient nature will eventually be made public—Kim should know this as well as anyone, having had a sex tape released—and usually not at a time of its subject’s choosing.

The difference is that with the Playboy shoot, Kim was, or should have been, fully aware of how this material could and probably would be used.  While some websites say her mother “pressured” or “urged” her to do the Playboy shoot, Kardashian told Harper’s Bazaar that her mother, Kris Jenner, said, “Go for it.  They might never ask you again.  Our show isn’t on the air yet.  No one knows who you are.  Do it and you’ll have these beautiful pictures to look at when you’re my age.”  Sounds like a young woman actively asking her mother for advice, since I doubt Jenner would have brought up the issue unsolicited.  (On the other hand, maybe Jenner is the kind of mom who wanted her daughter to appear in Playboy to generate tons of publicity for Keeping Up with the Kardashians.  Who knows?)  In either case, Kim was 26 at the time, old enough to know that she would be the one to reap most of the benefits and deal with most of the consequences.  Whether the advice was bad or good only she can decide, but she weighed it and made her choice.

Kim can’t be this naïve, and certainly should not be surprised.  All industries make the plays they feel will be most profitable for them, even if it means holding onto a product or service until a much later date (see Corning’s reintroduction of its 1962 development Gorilla Glass) .  It was probably not a coincidence that the craptacular Stealth didn’t get released until after Jamie Foxx won a Best Actor Oscar for Ray.  Playboy acts no differently.  Hef and Co. knew that holding back some pictures of a fabulous-looking young woman and releasing them when she’s more famous would generate a lot more revenue.  (Playboy did something similar in 1999 when it published nude photos of Charlize Theron from much earlier in her career without her permission, and got sued for it.)  A couple lessons here:  1) If you’re about to do something you think you might later regret strongly, don’t do it.  2) You may be done with the past, but the past—especially when it comes to nude photos and sex tapes—isn’t done with you.