Khloe Kardashian: ‘Keeping Up With the Kardashians was nearly a big flop’

Keeping Up With the Kardashians was almost a huge ratings failure before the show became a breakout hit, according to Khloe Kardashian.

The star told The Kelly Clarkson Show the reality TV juggernaut, which wraps its 20-season run this year, got off to an unpromising start when the family’s first episode failed to grab viewers’ attention.

“I think we shot a pilot or something for Ryan (Seacrest, producer) and it didn’t go anywhere. And then a show on E! fell through, so they needed something to fill this dead air time,” Khloe said, revealing she and her sisters, Kim and Kourtney, and their mother Kris Jenner – the brains behind the hit – had no time to really prepare for the debut of the show, which went on to revolutionise reality television programming.

“They (producers) were like, ‘You’re getting on the show, start filming, you’re getting on the air, like, in two weeks’,” she recalled, adding that the short window for preparation was a blessing in disguise.

“I actually really appreciate that, because we were just thinking, ‘Oh, we’re not gonna have a season two, let’s just film, it’s fun, let’s just be ourselves. This isn’t gonna go (be picked up)’,” she recounted.

Now the Kardashian thinks everything happened for a reason because the fact that the small screen superstars-to-be felt “no pressure” was key to the show’s success.

“We had no pressure on ourselves. We didn’t even have time to think about it, to really, like, have any preconceived, fake anything. It was just who we are on the fly and I think that’s what made the show so good,” she shared, reflecting: “we just weren’t thinking. And it turned out that was probably the best thing to happen to us because it was so, I think, relatable and realistic to some people.”