Kim Kardashian And Kanye West Aren’t Ready For Divorce Now

It is a strange time in the world of Kim and Kanye. In a less volatile past, both of them were constantly in the public eye, sharing great output (in the form of social-media posts and mid-concert monologues) and helping control the narrative about them and their family. It was, generally, impossible to not keep up. But since Kim’s traumatic robbery in Paris in October, and Kanye’s recent hospitalization for exhaustion, the two have been largely out of the public eye, and it was recently reported they would be “taking the rest of 2016 off.” (Given all we—and they—have dealt with this year, who can blame them?!)

On Wednesday, Us Weekly—typically not very reckless with tossing around serious rumors about major celebrities—issued a report that the pair were going to be divorced soon. “She wants a divorce,” 

the story stated plainly, citing the testimonial of a “Kardashian friend,” noting that “it will take some time before she can do anything, but she doesn’t want to stay married.” This claim raised some eyebrows! How seriously to take it, if seriously at all? If Us really had a smoking-gun Kim-Kanye divorce story, it wouldn’t make it its cover?!??! (That designation went instead to a “Melania’s PRIVATE WORLD” piece.) And, one wondered, would the Kardashians come out to shoot it down?

As for that last question, the shooting-down was provided in the form of a statement from Jonathan Cheban, Kim’s best friend. While attending the DailyMail.com holiday party, Cheban told E! News that the stories are false (he also really wants you to know he FaceTimed with the pair). 

“I just FaceTimed with Kim and Kanye and everyone’s talking about some divorce rumors and I was laughing because I didn’t hear that all day and I guess everybody else apparently here did and it’s so funny to me because it’s so not true,” he said. “I don’t know where people come up with stories but it’s literally hysterical but Jennifer Aniston has also been pregnant like 1,000 times so it’s kind of a joke . . . They’re in good spirits. I don’t want to talk much about them because it’s not my business but I do have to say that the divorcing is kind of hysterical, that I will mention, because I just spoke to both of them on FaceTime literally before I was coming here and when I heard that I literally burst out laughing.”

(If you’re a high-school student about to try out for the winter play, you could do worse than use that Cheban quote as your audition monologue, by the way.)

People, generally trustworthy on such matters, has also weighed in denying the report. The outlet says it’s a “tense time” for the couple, but that the “divorce stuff is completely false.” Meanwhile, Us continues to march on, as it were, running a follow-up last night claiming that Kim and her children are staying at Kris Jenner’s house, still, as Kanye recuperates, and that, “Kanye has not seen the kids very much since he was released and Kim does not think he should.” TMZ comes in with a different angle on the situation, reporting that Kanye has been creating music at a fast clip during this post-breakdown period, and that “a new album could be in the offing.”

While it is hard to parse the Kim-Kanye rumors at this point—there seems to be a new report released every few minutes—this is certainly “uncharted waters” as it relates to the family, and this couple in particular. It had generally been the case that any Kim-related rumor would be addressed via a prompt social-media response or an eventual plot line on her reality show—at the very least, we would be able to make our own judgments based on whatever she was up to on her Snapchat account that day—but now, it’s as if she is any other major celebrity whose thought process and day-to-day state of mind we have no access to.