Hope Sterling: Hey — quick question before we do anything else. Did you ever actually believe KUWTK showed you what was happening in that house?
Finn Brooks: I mean — I assumed there was editing, sure, but like, in a 'they cut the boring parts' way, not a 'they cut the thirty-minute Kanye presidential grievance rant' way.
Hope Sterling: THIRTY MINUTES. At Caitlyn Jenner's birthday. Kanye showed up and spent literally a third of an hour going in on Kris Jenner — demanding to know why the family hadn't voted for him in the 2020 presidential race — and the show filmed it, the producers saw it, and E! just... decided we couldn't.
Finn Brooks: No no no, say that again — they filmed it for the final season of KUWTK and it just never aired?
Hope Sterling: Never aired. And the only reason we know it existed is because Farnaz Farjam — she was an executive producer on the show — talked about it in an excerpt from this forthcoming Kim Kardashian biography, Citizen Kim, written by Jonathan Van Meter. The Cut ran the excerpt, Page Six reported on it October 15th, 2026.
Finn Brooks: Okay wait, Farjam is the one who disclosed it — so a producer on the show is the source. That's not a disgruntled leak, that's someone deciding years later that this story deserves to exist.
Hope Sterling: And she called it a 'thirty-minute battle' that was 'very telling' — her own words! So she's not minimizing it. She clearly thinks it mattered. Which makes the decision to cut it feel like, way more intentional than just a routine edit.
Finn Brooks: That's the thing that gets me — this isn't lost footage, it isn't an accident. Someone at E! looked at Kanye confronting Kris Jenner at a birthday party about a presidential campaign and made a call. That's editorial power in action, and we just weren't supposed to know it happened.
Hope Sterling: Okay but — wait — who actually made that call? Like, Farjam says 'we had to edit it out,' but she's a producer. E! executives are the ones who decide what airs, right? So is she even the person who said no?
Finn Brooks: That's the gap that's been bugging me. She says the reason was 'everybody is trying to come back together and be supportive' — which, fine, sounds kind — but that's a family reason, not a network reason. E! show executives made the final call. So why is the producer's explanation the one we're getting?
Hope Sterling: And like — okay, I'm not saying she's lying, but that rationale does two jobs at once, right? It's sympathetic AND it's completely brand-safe.
Finn Brooks: Exactly — it's the perfect alibi because there's no bad guy in it. But then she also called the scene 'very telling.' Her own word. So if it's just a kindness to a hurting family, why is it 'very telling'? Those two things are — I mean, actually, they kind of cancel each other out.
Hope Sterling: No, that's it. That's the tension.
Finn Brooks: Think about it this way — you're on your couch in 2021, KUWTK finale, takeout open, and you genuinely think you're watching how this family's story ended. And there's a thirty-minute scene — Kanye ripping into Kris Jenner at Caitlyn's birthday over the 2020 presidential vote — that just... doesn't exist in your version. Not lost. Not accidentally cut. Gone on purpose. That's not an edit, that's a different story.
Hope Sterling: And now the only way we find out is through a Citizen Kim biography excerpt that Jonathan Van Meter gets to drop before the October 27th release date. Like — we still don't have the footage. We have someone describing the footage.
Finn Brooks: Which means the question of whether Kim or Kris or E! specifically pushed for the cut — we're just never going to know from this. Farjam gave us the sympathetic version, and that might be the only version we ever get.
Hope Sterling: And that's the part that actually vindicates the hot take — because 'someone describing the footage' is not the same as losing it. The tape exists. It's on a hard drive somewhere. That's what makes this different from, like, a deleted scene that got wiped. This was a choice.
Finn Brooks: Right — and not just any choice. This is the twentieth season. The final one. The last chapter.
Hope Sterling: The finale! You're watching what you think is the complete ending of this family's story on television, and Kim Kardashian's then-husband is in that footage going off at Caitlyn's birthday, and it's just — gone. Like, not even a flicker of it.
Finn Brooks: Okay but the Kanye piece — wait, this is the thing that actually makes it absurd — he was literally running for president. Actively. The confrontation is him asking why his own family didn't vote for him in that campaign. At a birthday party. That's not a family spat, that's a historical document they sat on.
Hope Sterling: A HISTORICAL DOCUMENT. At Caitlyn Jenner's house!
Finn Brooks: I mean — imagine being at that party. You're there for birthday cake and Kanye is thirty minutes into why Kris Jenner cost him the 2020 election. That's the scene E! decided the finale audience couldn't have.
Hope Sterling: And Farjam called it 'very telling' — she said that! So the producer herself is flagging that it meant something, which means the decision to cut it wasn't, like, 'oh this was boring filler.' It was consequential footage, deliberately removed.
Finn Brooks: That's the hot take holding — the footage wasn't lost, it wasn't corrupted, it wasn't 'we ran out of time.' It was edited out in post-production on purpose. That distinction actually matters.
Hope Sterling: And honestly — okay, we'll get into this in a second — but whether Jonathan Van Meter dropping it through a Citizen Kim biography excerpt actually counts as transparency or is just, like, a fancier version of the same control is a whole other thing.
Finn Brooks: Okay but that's the thing — calling it transparency is the move. Like, that's what makes this actually clever. Jonathan Van Meter's Citizen Kim drops October 27th, The Cut runs the excerpt right before that, Page Six picks it up October 15th — that sequencing is not accidental. That's a publicity engine dressed up as a confession.
Hope Sterling: A managed reveal. That's all it is.
Finn Brooks: Exactly — and the mechanism is so clean it's almost elegant? Like, Farjam describes the scene existing, the tape stays locked, and now the story about the story gets told on their terms. We know there's a void. We just don't get to look into it.
Hope Sterling: And it's an authorized biography — Van Meter is writing Citizen Kim, not, like, an exposé. So who do you think is shaping what lands in that excerpt?
Finn Brooks: Right, and — wait, actually this is the part that hardens the take — if producers can now routinely do this, acknowledge cuts through book excerpts without releasing footage, that stops being accountability and becomes a new editorial power move. You get credit for disclosure without giving up control of the material.
Hope Sterling: Mmm — so it's like, the disclosure is the product now, not the footage.
Finn Brooks: That's the calibrated version, yeah. Six years after October 28, 2020, five years after KUWTK ended — and what surfaces is a biography excerpt that tells us a scene exists. Not the scene. Just the fact of it.
Hope Sterling: The tape is still on a hard drive somewhere and Kanye's grievance about the 2020 vote is still on it. That part hasn't changed at all.
Finn Brooks: So no, this doesn't count as transparency — it's a more sophisticated version of the same control. The verdict is that clean.
Hope Sterling: Okay my one detail I cannot let go — Farnaz Farjam called it 'very telling' and then didn't tell anyone. That's the whole bit. That's the joke.
Finn Brooks: Mine is — wait, I mean, the book comes out October 27th. One day before the anniversary of the actual confrontation, basically. That is either a coincidence or someone is extremely online.
Hope Sterling: STOP. Is that real? October 28th was the party—
Finn Brooks: October 27th is Citizen Kim. October 28th, 2020 was the birthday. One day off. I'm just saying.
Hope Sterling: Okay — toast. To the tape. Wherever it lives. On whatever E! hard drive is just sitting there with Kanye demanding presidential loyalty at Caitlyn Jenner's birthday. Read the book October 27th. The footage stays exactly where it is.
