Kim Kardashian, 41, has taken one step further in her divorce from Kanye West, 44. The SKIMS founder filed papers to make her officially single on Friday, Dec. 10 as initially reported by TMZ. HollywoodLife can also confirm via a source that the papers were filed. Kim, who has used the KKW initials in various brands like her makeup and fragrance lines, has also asked to drop ‘West’ from her surname, per the documents the outlet reports they’ve obtained — restoring her legal name to Kimberly Noel Kardashian. HollywoodLife has reached out to reps for Kim Kardashian about the move.
The papers, filed by her lawyer Laura Wasser, have to be signed off by a judge to make the move official. Notably, motioning for legal status separates other marital issues from child custody and property, which will still have to be settled upon. The pair share four children, North, 8, Saint, 5, Chicago, 3, and Psalm, 2, together, who they actively co-parent. There are several properties up for discussion, however, Kim bought Kanye out of his share in the Hidden Hills, CA home they shared together for $23 million.
Hours before the dramatic move, Kanye made yet another public plea to get Kim back during his Larry Hoover Benefit Concert with Drake. The Chicago native changed the outro of his song “Runaway” to address Kim in an emotional on-stage moment. “Baby, I need you to run right back to me…more specifically, Kimberly,” he sang on Dec. 9. While Kim was not seen during the livestream of the concert, held at the LA Memorial Coliseum, she was photographed entering the venue with sister Kendall Jenner and her mom Kris Jenner‘s boyfriend Corey Gamble.
Kim and Kanye were last seen together as they attended a memorial for late Off-White and Louis Vuitton designer Virgil Abloh in Miami, FL during the Art Basel. Abloh was a close friend of ‘Ye’s, acting as creative director for his Watch The Throne era, as well as collaborating on a number of other projects with the rapper. Kanye was also on hand during Kim’s milestone SNL debut on Oct. 9, where she blew him a kiss as he laughed in the audience — despite her joke about divorcing him over his “personality.”
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On Nov. 4, the Donda rapper reacted to Kim’s joke during an appearance on the Drink Champs podcast with N.O.R.E. and DJ EFN. “I ain’t never even seen the papers, we’re not even divorced,” he said during the two-hour interview, still calling Kim his “wife.” He added, “That ain’t no joke to me. My kids want their parents to stay together. I want … us to be together…SNL making my wife say ‘I divorced him’ on TV because they just wanted to get that bar off.”
Kanye also publicly referenced their split just before Thanksgiving during a speech made at Skid Row. During the rant, he said he believed God would bring him back to Kim. “I’m trying to express this in the most sane way, the most calm way possible, but I need to be back home,” he said on Nov. 24 while making an appearance with the CEO of LA Mission, an organization aimed at ending homlessness in the city. “The narrative God wants is to see that we can be redeemed in all these relationships. We’ve made mistakes. I’ve made mistakes. I’ve publicly done things that were not acceptable as a husband, but right now today, for whatever reason — I didn’t know I was going to be in front of this mic — but I’m here to change the narrative.”
Kim filed for divorce from Kanye, citing irreconcilable differences, in Feb. 2021. The pair originally linked up romantically in late 2012, welcoming daughter North the following year. The Illinois native then proposed to the Keeping Up With The Kardashians star on a football field by Oct. 2013, and they married at the Forte di Belvedere in Florence in 2014.