LOS ANGELES • The American television reality show that shot Kim Kardashian and her family to fame is ending next year after 14 years, the E! network said on Tuesday.
Keeping Up With The Kardashians, which helped make Kim Kardashian and her siblings Kylie, Kendall, Khloe and Kourtney household names and launched their careers in the fashion and beauty business, will air its last season early next year, the network and extended family said.
"It is with heavy hearts that we say goodbye to Keeping Up With The Kardashians. After what will be 14 years, 20 seasons, hundreds of episodes and several spin-off shows, we've decided as a family to end this very special journey," the family said on social media.
They gave no reasons for the decision, but E! said in a statement that it respected "the family's decision to live their lives without our cameras".
Keeping Up With The Kardashians made its debut in 2012 and spawned 12 spin-off series. Audiences have declined in recent years to under one million from about four million at the height of the show's fame. E! is part of NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast.
The show chronicled the personal and professional lives of the Californian family, including Kim Kardashian's marriage to rapper Kanye West, an armed robbery in Paris, Khloe Kardashian's split with basketball player Lamar Odom and the transition of family patriarch Bruce Jenner to Caitlyn Jenner.
It helped Kim Kardashian launch a beauty and shapewear line, launched the modelling career of her half-sister Kendall Jenner and helped promote a lip-gloss business that turned half-sister Kylie Jenner into a billionaire at the age of 21.
"This show made us who we are and I will be forever in debt to everyone who played a role in shaping our careers and changing our lives forever," Kim Kardashian said in a posting to her 188 million Instagram followers.
Kim Kardashian's life has recently taken a more serious turn, with her decision to train as a lawyer and to lobby for criminal-justice reform.
In 2018, she personally lobbied United States President Donald Trump to commute the sentence of a 63-year-old woman, Alice Marie Johnson, who was serving life in prison for a non-violent drug conviction. Mr Trump pardoned Johnson after the Republican National Convention.
REUTERS, NYTIMES
