It has been an emotional week for fans of Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Kardashian family matriarch and momager Kris Jenner announced that Season 20 would be the final season of the landmark reality show. Before the family became reality royalty, Ryan Seacrest had to create the show. Now, he is reflecting on the impact of the long-running series.
Ryan Seacrest has been there since the beginning as Keeping Up with the Kardashians’ creator and executive producer. Between juggling his various endeavors, Seacrest took time to reflect on the show’s impact, telling TMZ:
It certainly changed the landscape for a long time. I think what’s amazing is to see what they did with the television show and the entrepreneurial businesses they built out of this vehicle which was that show. I’m forever grateful to that family.
Ryan Seacrest gave a massive tip of the hat to the Kardashian family for how they have utilized the vehicle that Keeping Up with the Kardashians provided. Every member of the family is practically a household name at this point, with even the younger kids getting in on it. At the time the series began, Kylie Jenner was the youngest member of the Jenner-Kardashian family.
Fast forward to 2020, and Kylie Jenner is a mogul and a mother to daughter Stormi with Travis Scott. So, why is the show ending? The Kardashian-Jenners’ decision to make Season 20 of Keeping Up with the Kardashians the series’ last comes after the eldest Kardashian sister, Kourtney, already announced her decision to leave the show, citing a “toxic environment.”
Just because one of the Kardashians decided to step away from the reality series did not make the decision any less emotional, according to Ryan Seacrest. We are talking nearly a decade-and-a-half of investment and lots of memories here. Speaking about how the family wrestled with the decision, Ryan Seacrest told ET:
In talking to the family, this was a very, very hard decision for them to make. I know, even before and after the announcement came out, they were emotional. We were trading texts and emails after the announcement, and you look back at 14 years and 20 seasons of a camera in your life and think about that, at some point you're gonna say, 'You know, we did it. We had a great run. We're gonna live with a little more privacy in our lives.' And I think they just felt like now is the time to do it.
Was privacy a factor? Kourtney Kardashian had previously lamented her lack of it on episodes of Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Meanwhile, other reports have surfaced claiming that money (or the lack thereof) contributed to the family’s decision to end the series. Ryan Seacrest’s comments point in another direction.
Money had arisen as a reported issue last year too. Ryan Seacrest’s statement does gel with the recent developments in the lives of Keeping Up with the Kardashians’ stars. The show has decided to respect its subjects’ privacy a bit. For instance, it will not be covering the behavior of Kim Kardashian’s husband Kanye West, who Kardashian had opened up about having bipolar disorder.
While the final season is in sight, Keeping Up with the Kardashians will return with new episodes on E! later this month. There are still two more seasons on E! left to explore the latest in Kim and Khloe Kardashians’ lives, alongside younger sisters Kendall and Kylie Jenner. Ryan Seacrest has a little more time before he has to mourn the show’s exit from the pop culture landscape.
Through the years, the Kardashians have managed their dramatic lives in front of the cameras. Cameras have captured Kim and Kourtney Kardashians’ huge fight, among other dramas. Keeping Up with the Kardashians found a way to keep filming during the coronavirus quarantine and will return when Season 19 premieres on Thursday, September 17, at 8 p.m. ET as one of this fall’s new offerings.
