Kim Kardashian admits she once used Britney Spears to get paparazzi attention

Kim Kardashian has candidly reflected on her early years chasing fame, revealing that she once used her connection to Britney Spears to draw paparazzi attention.

During a recent appearance on the podcast Khloé in Wonder Land, the SKIMS founder looked back on a moment from the early 2000s when she and longtime friend Jonathan Cheban were dining in New York City and learned that Spears was staying at a nearby hotel.

“[Fame] is all I wanted,” Kardashian admitted. “I lived for it.”

She went on to recall how one acquaintance offered them a ride in a Rolls-Royce Phantom when she and Cheban “could hardly even get a cab.”

“So we’re like, ‘Oh, can we get a ride to our hotel?’” she continued, adding that the man agreed.

Cheban suggested they sit in the back seat to give the impression they were being chauffeured, a move designed to attract attention.

When they arrived at the hotel, Kardashian said paparazzi were gathered outside waiting for Spears. The photographers quickly turned their cameras on her, asking whether she was there to visit the pop star.

Kim Kardashian continued, “So we go inside, we go into a phone booth because we’re like, ‘We don’t know anyone at this hotel. We don’t even know if there is a hotel bar for us to walk in.’”

She shared how she and Cheban stayed in the phone booth for about 20 minutes before deciding it was time to go. When they eventually left, the paparazzi frenzy continued, with photographers asking how Spears was doing.

According to Kardashian, the stunt worked. Photos of her appeared widely, and she and Cheban felt they had successfully played the publicity game.

“We totally scammed the system,” she said

Britney Spears and Kim Kardashian first met in the early 2000s and have maintained their friendship since then.