Kim Kardashian will testify in Paris trial over $9M jewelry heist that targeted her. Here’s what to know.

Almost nine years after Kim Kardashian was robbed at gunpoint in Paris, the suspects accused of stealing $9 million of jewelry will head to court Monday for the start of a high-profile trial that will feature testimony from the reality star.   

A total of 10 people, nicknamed the “grandpa robbers” by French media because of their ages, face charges in connection with the break-in at the reality star’s luxury suite at the Hôtel de Pourtalès, an anonymous-looking building known as “No Address” frequented by A-list celebrities. The suspects allegedly wore ski masks and clothes with police markings, tied Kardashian up in the bedroom of the luxury suite and robbed her. They are accused of armed robbery, kidnapping or other criminal charges.

All eyes will be on Kardashian when she takes the stand May 13 in the trial which is expected to last a month.

Michael Rhodes, Kardashian’s attorney, said that his client has “tremendous appreciation and admiration for the French judicial system” and that she “has been treated with great respect by the French authorities.” 

Kardashian wants the trial to proceed “with respect for all parties to the case,” he said, and is “reserving her testimony for the court and jury.”Months after the robbery made headlines, Kardashian talked about the incident in an emotional conversation with her sisters, Khloe Kardashian and Kourtney Kardashian, that aired in March 2017 during a season 13 episode of E!’s “Keeping Up With the Kardashians.”

“My door was open like this, and then I saw two guys holding another guy down in police uniforms, but right outside of my bedroom, 5 feet away,” an emotional Kardashian said in the scene, a clip of which has been viewed 3.8 million times on E!’s YouTube channel. “So I slid off my bed and picked up my phone and I’m like I don’t know how to call 911 in a different country, so I call Pascal … and then the guy came and grabbed the phone from me, threw me on the bed, and I was like, ‘this is it.’” 

She said she saw the two men holding down the concierge, who was handcuffed and had a key to her room. “What I’ve heard from talking to him afterward is, they said, you know, ‘Where’s the rapper’s wife? Let us up to her room!’ in French,” she said, referring to her then-husband, the artist Ye, formerly Kanye West.

Most of the defendants were arrested three months after the incident occurred as part of a huge police operation that involved piecing together security camera footage and DNA evidence. 

But the legal process has been beset by years of delays, with many of the aging defendants now suffering from illnesses such as cancer and heart problems. One of them has since died and another is too unwell to stand trial.

The defendants include: Aomar Ait Khedache, 69, known as “Old Omar,” accused of being the plot’s mastermind; his son and alleged getaway driver, Harminy, 37; Didier “Blue Eyes” Dubreucq, 69; and the brother of Kardashian’s driver in Paris, Gary Madar, 35, accused of providing the alleged gang members with information about her whereabouts. One of the accused is a woman, 78-year-old Christiane Glotin, who is accused of being an accomplice in planning the heist.

Under France’s judicial system, defendants in criminal cases do not enter formal pleas. They can admit or deny their guilt, but the trial proceeds regardless. Most cases in France are decided by judges, but as the maximum sentence of this trial is more than 20 years, it will be heard by a jury. There are no television cameras in French courts, so the proceedings will be documented by journalists and sketch artists recounting what happens in the room.

At least one defendant has admitted to his part in the robbery. Yunice Abbas, now 72, wrote the 2021 book “I Kidnapped Kim Kardashian,” in which he detailed his life story and provided an account of the robbery itself. In the text, he describes being recruited months beforehand for a team to rob an unnamed “wife of an American rapper” — whose identity he only learned after committing the crime against her.

“A robbery! In the heart of Paris. Just like in the old days. Excitement prickles down my spine,” he wrote of the moment he was hired for the job. However, he said he did not know the target was Kardashian until after the stickup took place.

He described how he and his fellow thieves traveled to her apartments by foot and bicycle — his own ride suffering a flat tire, he wrote. Their police uniforms meant gaining entry was “like a breeze,” allowed in by the concierge who they then “gently restrained” and used to find Kardashian’s room. He said he stayed on the ground floor while his accomplices robbed Kardashian “without violence — a crucial aspect of the contract.”

But Kardashian has shared a different recollection of the incident, telling comedian David Letterman in a 2021 interview that one of her assailants “grabbed” her that night.

“I was wearing a robe, and I wasn’t wearing anything under it,” she said on an episode of Netflix’s “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman.” “I was like, ‘OK, this is the time I’m going to get raped. Just deal, it’s going to happen. Just prepare yourself.’”

In the years since the robbery, Kardashian has remained in the public eye and has continued to bolster her brand. With 357 million Instagram followers, she is among the most-followed people online. Skims, the shapewear brand she launched in 2023, is valued at $4 billion, according to Forbes. Kardashian, who in 2019 said she was studying to obtain her law degree, has also been a vocal advocate for justice reform. 

She and West, who separated in 2021 and settled their divorce in 2022, share four children together. 

The star has returned to Paris since the robbery. However, she has said that the 2016 experience rattled her.

“What’s crazy is, meeting with my attorneys and knowing the information that I know now, [the robbers] had been following me for two years,” she told Ellen DeGeneres on “The Ellen Show” in April 2017. “They had been hearing interviews that I did getting excited about this jewelry or this jewelry … and it’s not to say that I’ll never wear jewelry again or anything like that. I truly don’t know if I’d ever feel comfortable, I truly don’t know if I’d ever wear real jewelry again.”

“My whole life has changed in terms of how I travel,” she added. “I never thought I needed security staying outside my door, even though I had a lot of jewelry and if you think about it, yeah, I should have had a security guard outside my door 24/7 when I’m traveling — and I didn’t. Now I have several just for me to be able to sleep at night.”