CHAPTER THREE 

Cut off from virtually all funds, Kris was forced to borrow money from her mother and grandparents just to make ends meet. After Bob’s eventual death in 2003 from esophageal cancer, his widow, Ellen Kardashian, made public his journals from this period, which provide a telling glimpse of the turmoil the family was enduring in this difficult period. Many of the entries reflect his chagrin over Kris’s cavalier attitude toward their four young children as she continued to openly carry on her affair with Todd Waterman.

On December 15, 1989, Bob wrote,

Todd drove up to the main gate + parked. He went in the house and slept in my bed till? Khloé and Robert were in the house. She doesn’t care! Only about herself . . . she was at TODD’S house from 10:00–11:15 She left kids + screwed all nite. Great state of caring.

On Christmas day, he penned another entry:

I was home alone with 4 kids. I put them to bed & played w/them.

The most unsettling entries, however, concern what he describes as Kris’s “neglect” or “abuse” of the children. In an entry dated August 23, 1989, he writes,

Kris was kicking and beating her and said she was going to kill [Kim]! Kim was hysterical.

In another entry, he claims that when Kim was sick with the flu, Kris made her stay at a friend’s house even though she had been throwing up.

She knew Kim was sick and still sent her away . . . All the while Kris was screwing Todd in my bed!

On March 20, 1990, he wrote,

Kourtney started crying . . . She was sad because Mommy wasn’t home at all. Kourtney wanted her to cook dinner for them. How sad that a child has to beg her mother to cook her dinner and be home with her.

He also describes hearing Kris say,

“I love Todd more than anything in this world.”

On April 23, 1990, he wrote,

[Kris] doesn’t really care about the kids at all.

The cancellation of her credit cards was bad enough, but in early 1990, Bob also cancelled her charge card at Gelson’s grocery store. She remembers being so broke that she took the kids out one night for pizza and realized that she didn’t have enough money to pay the bill. This, she later described, was the “lowest moment.” In June 1990, Kris’s lawyer finally filed a court petition for emergency relief as well as spousal and child support. The document sheds considerable light on the style to which she had become accustomed while married to the millionaire Beverly Hills lawyer. It is a style she claimed in the court documents that she “deserved.”

“The petitioner and I shared a luxury lifestyle,” Kris declared. “Nothing was too good for our family. Even our children’s clothing was purchased at exclusive boutiques.” This lifestyle, she explained, included frequent, expensive European holidays, regular dinners at fancy restaurants, and fancy parties. She described one such occasion.

“The New Year’s Eve party alone cost between $10,000 and $12,000. Since January 1990 the petitioner has essentially cut me off from all funds.” She was so broke, she claimed, that she had been forced to take her first job since quitting as a flight attendant at American Airlines a decade earlier.

“In order to have some cash at my disposal to meet the basic needs of myself and my children, I have taken a job offered to me by my friend who has just gone through a divorce. [But] I am earning less money than our paid household help.”

In her petition, Kris demanded an allowance for her and the children’s monthly expenses, which she claimed added up to $37,189. For his part, Bob—who had taken some time off from his law firm to deal with the personal issues brought on by the messy separation—claimed that he was “unemployed” and was earning only $2,000 a month. Kris argued that his unemployment was “voluntary” and demanded he be ordered back to work so he could earn enough to restore her lavish lifestyle and spending habits.

Among the expenses she detailed in the documents was a monthly mortgage on their home of $15,000, and the salaries of their household staff, including a gardener, a maid, and a housekeeper, as well as clothing costs that included $800 a month for the children and $2,000 for her own wardrobe.

The petition also demanded that Bob pay the outstanding credit-card bills of more than $21,000 that had accumulated before he cut off her cards, including hefty charges at luxury department stores such as Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue.

For his part, Bob claimed in his journal that many of these bills and others were lavish gifts that Kris had bestowed on her lover. When he found a $1,200 Sears bill for a new refrigerator on his personal store credit card, for example, he called Sears to claim the company had made a mistake. He had not ordered a fridge, nor had one been delivered.

“They informed me that my wife had purchased this refrigerator for Todd Waterman,” he wrote. In his response to her court petition, he claimed that Kris had kept a gun and silverware, worth more than $35,000, that they had received as wedding presents.

In response to her financial claims, the court eventually awarded Kris a monthly allowance, but her petition had demanded more than just money. She also demanded that Bob be barred from entering the home in which she had been living since he stormed out months earlier.

“As a result of [Robert’s] and my irreconcilable differences, there is a tremendous amount of discord at the family residence,” she wrote. “Every time [Robert] and I speak, [Robert] emotionally abuses me to the point that I am unable to handle the simplest tasks for hours after our conversation. In every conversation [Robert] and I have, [Robert] calls me a whore, a bitch, a slut and other names I can not repeat. On May 3, 1990 Kimberly found me crying after a brutal conversation with [Robert] and she became so upset I had a difficult time getting her to her carpool on time. Kimberly called my office twice that afternoon crying hysterically, begging me to come home.”

Bob responded by complaining about the fact that Kris had allowed her boyfriend to move into the home.

“I believe this situation is inappropriate for several reasons,” he declared in his own petition. “Firstly my children are exposed to another man living with their mother. I believe that is inappropriate and I ask the court to enjoin and restrain [Kris] from living with any member of the opposite sex in or about the presence of our children. As a matter of fact, my son Robert said he slept on the couch in [Kris’s] bedroom when [Kris] and her boyfriend were in bed together in the bedroom. In my opinion this situation is detrimental to the children.”

In response to these claims, the court ordered both parties to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. The court-appointed professional suggested Bob start by sending Kris a letter to help process his feelings.

“Once I filed for divorce almost all communication ceased and our anger just built up,” he wrote her in 1990. “Imagine what effect this behavior ultimately will have on the children’s future morals, life and general outlook . . . A real nightmare, isn’t it?”

The eventual evaluation didn’t spare either side. Kris, concluded the report,

is currently experiencing considerable situational stress which is resulting in increased impulsivity and disorganization in her thinking, affects and behaviors. She also has an immature need for gratification in relationships. Her emotions effect her decision-making process in a very inconstant manner sometimes having a strong impact and other times very little impact in similar situations.

The psychiatrist administered a test called the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), which is a controversial clinical assessment tool developed in the 1930s, frequently used by mental health professionals to determine adult personality and psychopathology disorders, and often employed in family custody disputes. Kris scored a “spike 4” on the test, which, the psychiatrist noted, is associated with women who are “immature, impulsive, high risk takers who do things others do not approve of just for the personal enjoyment of doing so. The results indicate that Kristen may occasionally show bad judgment and that she tends to be somewhat selfish, pleasure orientated, narcissistic, and manipulative, she doesn’t tend to be anxious and shows no neurotic or psychotic symptoms.”

Bob had accused his wife of being “reckless and non-motherly” to her children. The psychiatrist noted that Kris believed she was a loving mother to her children, but that “her sense of self is based much more on fantasy than realistic considerations.”

The report also had harsh judgment for Bob’s behavior during this period, concluding that he was “impulsive when overwhelmed” and, more troubling, was given to episodes of “situational anger.” It may have been one of these episodes that caused Kris to seek a restraining order, which barred either party from “molesting, attacking, striking, threatening, sexually assaulting, battering, or otherwise disturbing the peace of the other party.”

In the end, it is this anger—characterized by frequent, almost violent, shouting episodes in front of the children—that caused the court to award Kris custody. To the court, Bob acknowledged his anger.

“This is true,” he said. “It was true that I was very upset when I found out the respondent was having an affair and I wanted a divorce.”

Kris too later acknowledged that her behavior during this period was out of control and admitted that she deeply regretted it. In her memoir, she wrote that she felt ashamed and deeply disgusted with herself. She claimed that the affair with Waterman was a “deeply horrific” situation that had taken over her life. She had always imagined herself as someone who was strongly committed to family values, Christian morality, and her children. Yet her behavior had broken up her marriage and hurt “the greatest guy in the world,” Bob.

Watching her young kids play in the pool, she reflected, made her realize that it wasn’t fair to subject her kids to the “battlefield” they had been forced to live on for these many months.

Then one day, she claims, she had an epiphany. She decided it was time to get her life back on track and “be a woman who always tries to live the truth.” Days later, she would meet the man whom the world still knew as Bruce.