
‘A spiritual war’: Are Christian nationalists threatening to turn the US into a religious state?
More Videos
Published
2 years agoon
By
adminThe pastor lights his cigar as he sits down on the sofa, casting the lit match aside. The floral upholstery starts to burn, the flames get bigger.
“It’s not the job of the preacher to be a firefighter,” Doug Wilson says, as the fire spreads. “We’re supposed to be arsonists in the world.”
Wilson leads a church in Moscow, Idaho. It’s a small city nestled beside mountains and surrounded by green, home to the University of Idaho. It voted for Joe Biden in 2020.
But Wilson, who opposes same sex marriage and rails against the Pride flag, wants to turn Moscow into a “Christian town”.
Stirring across America is a movement focused on tearing down the wall separating church and state. Conservative Christians are moving to remote states to live a rural life according to their values.
A real-estate company in Idaho that sells survival homes to such people offers buyers an AR-15 rifle as a “closing gift”.

Controversial Pastor Doug Wilson in his office in June 2022
Christian nationalism is the belief that America should be governed as a Christian nation according to faith.
While it is not a new concept, some experts argue it has gone from a fringe ideology to a force in Donald Trump’s Republican party and is now a threat to the very fabric of American democracy.
One professor said the movement uses Christian ideals to mask racist ideas, but others say the Christian nationalist label is simply used to dismiss any Christians who want to be involved in politics.
Advertisement
More than half of Republicans are at least sympathetic to Christian nationalist ideas, according to a recent survey.
Religious leaders like controversial pastor Wilson and political actors like ex-Trump national security advisor Mike Flynn are considered key figures in the movement.

Crosses and flags saying “An Appeal to Heaven” were seen at the January 6 riots
So how much of a danger is Christian nationalism?
At the January 6 insurrection, flags saying “An Appeal to Heaven” and “Jesus is my saviour” appeared alongside neo-Nazi iconography as rioters poured into the Capitol.
And while hundreds of people have been charged following the events in Washington DC, experts fear that Christian nationalism poses the “greatest threat to democracy” in America, amid talk of a “spiritual war”.
“Well I gotta get home for dinner,” Pastor Wilson says as the video draws to a close. The clip then ends with sped up footage of the sofa engulfed by the fire.
‘They will tell you being gay is wrong’
Bradley Onishi spent seven years as a minister before becoming disillusioned and leaving his church.
Dressed in a flat peak cap and a black t-shirt, he cuts a fashionable figure as he warns of the dangers posed by what he calls white Christian nationalism.
“Christian nationalism is all about order”, he says. “They want everything to feel like it’s in its proper place.
“They want to go back to a time when they understand there to be two genders, a clear patriarchal structure to the family, a restricted approach to immigration, black people and other people of colour knowing their place in the country, socially and politically.”
“They will tell you that being gay is wrong, in all cases. Some of them will tell you openly that interracial marriage is a sin,” he adds.
When asked if he considers Christian nationalism to be a white supremacist movement, his answer is definitive.
“Would I say that? Totally. Are they gonna tell you that? No.”

According to Onishi, large numbers of Christians are leaving more liberal states to settle in Idaho, where they are trying to exert control over local political institutions.
Onishi is from Orange County, California but says that he could find 100 people he knew that have now moved to Idaho.
He was inspired to write his book, Preparing For War: The Extremist History Of White Christian Nationalism – And What Comes Next, by the sobering sight of rioters storming the Capitol building in Washington DC on 6 January, 2021.
“I was pretty horrified that people I knew were there and that if I hadn’t left (the church) maybe I would have been there. That’s pretty terrifying to think of.”
Read more:
Trump-backing ‘fake electors’ charged
Leader of far-right militia jailed for 18 years over US Capitol riot
Moving to Idaho to prepare for civil war?
The American Redoubt movement marries Christian nationalism with the idea of armed rural living in preparation for doomsday, and civil war.
First coined in an online essay posted to a survival blog by former US Army intelligence officer James Wesley Rawles in 2011, the so-called American Redoubt refers to a mountainous area where around 90% or more of the people are white.
It covers Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and parts of Washington and Oregon, in America’s sparsely-populated northwest.
Rawles encourages “freedom-loving Christians” to vote with their feet and congregate in the American Redoubt and prepare for the collapse of society.
He has predicted that increasing polarisation in American politics will lead to armed conflict.
“It will be the second civil war, here in America and caused by the gulf between the right and left – or between the godly and the godless – or between the libertarians and the statists – or between the individualists and the collectivists.”
It’s hard to estimate how many people have been inspired to move to the American Redoubt, but there’s certainly no shortage of estate agents advertising “redoubt” homes online.
One company, Flee The City, tells prospective customers it will find them rural properties that will give them the “safety and security we all require during turbulent periods”.
Customers who purchase a property receive an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle as a closing gift.
While Flee The City’s website says its clientele “hails from diverse backgrounds” all customers must “respect the Constitution and Bill of Rights”.

A deadly gift for buyers of survival homes. Pic: Flee the City
This is far more muted language than that used when the company was known as Black Rifle Real Estate and ruled out “snowflakes, liberals, socialists, Marxists, communists and other tyrants that hate our constitutional republic”.
“The reward for taking a stand and seeing your family safe as the sanctuary cities are burned to the ground? Priceless,” it told customers on a now-archived version of its website.
Flee The City did not respond to a request for comment.
How popular is Christian nationalism?
And it’s not just in the American Redoubt that Christian nationalist ideas have been taking hold, but nationwide.
A poll of more than 6,000 Americans by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and the Brookings Institution asked if people agreed with various statements including “God has called Christians to exercise dominion over all areas of American society”.
The survey found that more than half of Republicans were at least sympathetic to Christian nationalism.
Christian nationalism was also tightly tied with support for Donald Trump, the data suggests, with 71% of adherents holding a favourable view of the former president.

Some of those adhering to Christian nationalist views are also highly supportive of Donald Trump
“White Christian nationalism is the greatest threat to democracy and the witness of the church in the United States today,” says New York Times bestselling historian Jemar Tisby.
Speaking at a panel discussion of the survey’s findings in February, he said the racial dimensions of Christian nationalism cannot be overlooked and that it typically sees a resurgence around times when black rights are expanding.
“Christian nationalism turns around a sense of loss,” chimed in Kristin Kobes du Mez, a professor of history at Calvin University.
She said there are “clear anti-democratic impulses” in Christian nationalist beliefs, with some adherents holding the law of God above that of democracy.

Mike Flynn has been taking his talk of ‘spiritual war’ across America. Pic: AP
‘Spiritual war’ – Trump ally’s ReAwaken America tour
Former three-star general Mike Flynn was appointed as Trump’s national security advisor but resigned after just a few weeks. He pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and was later pardoned by the former president.
More recently he has been known for his ReAwaken America tour and the Christian nationalist ideas he has been preaching far and wide.
“If we are going to have one nation under God, which we must, we have to have one religion. One nation under God, and one religion under God, right?” he said at a church in Texas.
He has said that a “spiritual war” is going on in America.

Mike Flynn signs a picture of a girl at a church in New York state. Pic: AP
And it now seems Flynn could be bringing his firebrand Christian rhetoric to the White House, with Trump telling him on stage: “We’re going to bring you back.”
Sky News approached Mr Flynn for comment but did not receive a response.
Colin Beck, a professor at Pomona College and an expert in social movements, says that while it’s correct to describe Christian nationalism as “nativism and racism together dressed up in symbols of Christianity and patriotism”, it has also become something people identify with who would not consider it in that way.
He told Sky News that it has come to dominate the image of the Republican party, but he has diverged from some academics in his belief that its influence will “boomerang” and retreat from politics over the next decade.
On the ground in Idaho
In Idaho the impact of the coordinated efforts of Christians moving to the area and engaging with local politics is clear to see.
“Some of these individuals are very focussed on getting elected into office and have been for well over a decade now”, says democracy activist Alicia Abbott.
“They’re rising to different levels of power, everywhere from our library and school boards all the way up to our state legislatures.”

Cherry Lane library, Meridian. Pic: Meridian Library District
In Meridian, a local group campaigned to dissolve the city’s library district entirely, claiming it allowed children to access sexually explicit material. The library district said this was not true.
But Abbott, who works for anti-extremism group The Idaho 97 Project, says the Concerned Citizens of Meridian group have been trying to get books banned “under the guise that they are grooming young adults” – something she says is “blatantly false”.
“They’re targeting LGBTQIA age-appropriate material and they are organising quite effectively around the narrative that librarians are checking out ‘pornography’ to kids.”
Abbott said “manipulative efforts” are being used to recruit people into Christian nationalism, but emphasised that it doesn’t reflect the general opinions of Idahoans.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
3:07
All across America, abortion rights are under threat
Christian nationalism ‘not some means to bring white order’
But not everyone believes Christian nationalism is a racist movement.
Stephen Wolfe is a scholar who recently published a book called The Case For Christian Nationalism, in which he outlines his vision for America – and says Christian nationalists are a “threat”.
In an interview with Pastor Wilson, he said accusations that Christian nationalism is a dog whistle for white supremacy were “false”.
He adds: “It’s not some means to bring back some sort of white supremacy or white order, it’s just identifying what is true on the ground.”

A cross seen outside the Capitol in Washington DC. Pic: AP
He talks about the idea of Christian nationalism being “a Christian nation that is kind of self-conscious of itself as a Christian people”.
Wolfe says he doesn’t want religious neutrality and calls for American institutions to reflect the “fact” that the US is a Christian nation.
“We should have Christian magistrates and Christian governments that enforce Christian norms on the public, in the public, and also ensure that public institutions such as schools are Christian as well.”
Asked if secularism – the separation of church and state – is in trouble, he says: “I hope so”.
“If Christians get serious then yeah, we’re a threat…
“I’m not talking about overthrowing the government, I’m not talking about overthrowing the state. I’m talking about the regime as in the people who kind of control the forces of society…”
“I’m not calling for someone to go shoot up something,” he clarifies.
When approached for comment by Sky News, Pastor Wilson acknowledged he is what some might call a Christian nationalist.
He said: “Accusations of ‘racism’ and ‘white supremacy’ are pretty easy to come by these days, and I am pleased to report to you that when it comes to the people I represent, the charge is utterly false, and ludicrous on top of that.
“Christian nationalism is not a threat to democracy, but it does pose a threat to godless secularism. If someone has simply equated ‘democracy’ with ‘atheistic secularists always getting their way’, then the charge might make some sense.
“But if one defines democracy as a reasonable mechanism for selecting our leaders via fair and free elections, then we are not opposed to democracy at all.”
Stephen Wolfe did not respond to a request for comment.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
1:04
Capitol riots: ‘Intel was a disaster’
Christian nationalism ‘a confused issue’
Dr Albert Mohler, who is president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, which trains new pastors, says Christian nationalism is a “confused issue” that is sometimes used as a “term of abuse”.
He told Sky News: “In a modern era in which secularisation is considered by the elites to be the norm, anyone who shows up speaking about Christianity in terms of national politics is going to be accused of being a Christian nationalist.”
Dr Mohler, who says he believes in “traditional sexual morality” and believes there are only two genders, said he understands the “propaganda value” in suggesting Christian nationalism is a cover for white supremacy as a way to dismiss it.
Asked if he considers himself to be a Christian nationalist, he said: “I’ve never used the term, but I am a Christian and I believe in the importance of the nation and a Christian influence in the nation.
“So there are some people on the left who would claim that anyone who holds such a position is a Christian nationalist. I’m not going to run from that, but it is not a term that I use of myself.”
Matias Perttula is director of the centre of American values at America First Policy Institute thinktank.
He echoes the idea that people “of other political leanings” tend to overexaggerate Christian or religious expression and “use it as a way to advance their own political agenda”.
Perttula said it was important to have civil dialogue and not approach it from an attitude of creating division.
After January 6, is American democracy under threat from Christian nationalism?
“Christian nationalism is a very serious problem for the United States and specifically for American democracy,” says Amanda Tyler.
Tyler is executive director of Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, a non-profit dedicated to upholding freedom of religion for all people.
She argues that Christian nationalism is both “un-American and un-Christian”.
“It morphs God’s love into an ideology that subjugates our neighbours, creates an ‘us’ versus ‘them’ narrative, and can even threaten their lives,” she says.
A key “myth” associated with the movement, according to Ms Tyler, is that America was founded as a “Christian nation”.
“And until we deal with some of those underlying myths and beliefs, we won’t be able to dismantle Christian nationalism.”

The so-called QAnon Shaman, Jacob Chansley, seen at the scene of the Capitol riots
She says Christian nationalism “helped fuel” the Washington DC insurrection that sought to overturn the 2020 election, but that the ideology has been gaining steam since then.
Let’s look back at one particular moment from 6 January that might get overlooked among the frenzy and the violence.
After the braying crowd breached the barricades and poured inside, a small number emerged on the floor of the Senate chamber and – in a strange scene – gathered in prayer.
“Thank you Heavenly Father for this opportunity to stand up for our God-given unalienable rights,” Jacob Chansley, the so-called QAnon shaman, shouted through a megaphone.
“Thank you for allowing the United States of America to be reborn.”
You may like
US
Donald Trump says Russia and Ukraine are ‘very close to a deal’ – and says ‘two sides should now meet’
Published
11 hours agoon
April 25, 2025By
admin
Donald Trump has said Russia and Ukraine are “very close to a deal” with “most of the major points agreed” – as he called for the two sides to meet.
Shortly after arriving in Rome for Pope Francis’s funeral, the US president said high-level officials should now meet to “finish [the deal] off”.
“A good day in talks and meetings with Russia and Ukraine,” Mr Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
“They are very close to a deal, and the two sides should now meet, at very high levels, to ‘finish it off’.
“Most of the major points are agreed to. Stop the bloodshed, NOW. We will be wherever is necessary to help facilitate the END to this cruel and senseless war!”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
2:26
Ukraine-Russia peace talks explained
Throughout the week, the US president has criticised both Ukraine and Russia for failing to agree to a peace deal.
On Wednesday, he accused Mr Zelenskyy of harming talks on Truth Social, saying “the man with ‘no cards to play’ should now, finally, GET IT DONE”.
More on Donald Trump
Related Topics:
A day later, after nine people were killed in Kyiv after a Russian missile and drone strike, Mr Trump said: “Vladimir, STOP! 5000 soldiers a week are dying. Let’s get the Peace Deal DONE!”
The president and other officials have also threatened to withdraw from negotiations if no progress is made toward a deal.
It comes after Mr Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff met Vladimir Putin in Moscow to discuss a US-brokered peace plan for Ukraine.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
2:24
Putin-Witkoff meeting
The talks allowed Russia and the United States to “further bring their positions closer together” on “a number of international issues”, a Kremlin aide said.
Speaking earlier on the flight to Italy, Mr Trump said he hadn’t been fully briefed on Mr Witkoff and Mr Putin’s meeting – but added it was a “pretty good meeting”.
Read more:
US and Russia talks moving in ‘right direction’, top diplomat says
A ‘barbaric’ 24 hours in a ‘horrendous’ war
Russia and Ukraine have not held direct talks since the early weeks of the war, which began in February 2022.
Ukraine has repeatedly said it would not accept a deal conceding land or handing over sovereignty to Russia.
However, Mr Trump said in an interview with TIME magazine that “Crimea will stay with Russia,” describing the region as a place where Moscow has “had their submarines” and “the people speak largely Russian”.
“Zelenskyy understands that, and everybody understands that it’s been with them for a long time,” he added. “It’s been with them long before Trump came along.”
When asked on Friday about Mr Trump’s comments, Mr Zelenskyy did not want to comment but repeated that recognising occupied Ukrainian territory as Russian is a red line.
US
Luigi Mangione pleads not guilty to murder of healthcare boss – as death penalty bid confirmed
Published
12 hours agoon
April 25, 2025By
admin
Luigi Mangione has pleaded not guilty to murdering a US healthcare chief executive – as prosecutors formally confirmed they plan to seek the death penalty for him.
The 26-year-old defendant appeared in a Manhattan federal court for an arraignment over the killing of Brian Thompson in New York last year.
Mangione has previously pleaded not guilty to a separate New York state indictment he faces over the murder of Mr Thompson, the boss of UnitedHealth’s insurance division.
While public officials condemned the killing, some Americans – and people elsewhere across the world – have lauded Mangione, saying he drew attention to steep US healthcare costs and the power of health insurers to refuse payment for some treatments.

A pedestrian walks past a mural of Luigi Mangione in east London. Pic: Reuters
In justifying their decision to seek the death penalty, prosecutors wrote in their filing that Mangione “presents a future danger because he expressed an intent to target an entire industry, and rally political and social opposition to that industry, by engaging in an act of lethal violence”.
US attorney general Pam Bondi earlier this month announced that the Justice Department would seek the death penalty for Mangione.
Mangione’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
More on Luigi Mangione
Related Topics:
They have said Ms Bondi’s announcement on 1 April was “unapologetically political” and breached government protocols for death penalty decisions.

UnitedHealthcare chief executive officer Brian Thompson. Pic: UnitedHealth Group/AP
If Mangione is convicted in the federal case, the jury would determine in a separate phase of the trial whether to recommend the death penalty.
Any such recommendation must be unanimous, and the judge would be required to impose it.
Mr Thompson was shot dead on 4 December outside a hotel in Midtown Manhattan, where an investor conference for the company was planned.
The killing sparked a five-day manhunt that captivated Americans.
Police officers in Altoona, Pennsylvania, found Mangione with a 9mm pistol and silencer, clothing that matched the apparel worn by Thompson’s gunman in surveillance footage, and a notebook describing an intent to “wack” an insurance company CEO, according to a court filing.
US
Kim Kardashian’s Paris robbery trial: Everything you need to know
Published
23 hours agoon
April 25, 2025By
admin
In October 2016, Kim Kardashian was robbed at gunpoint – with jewellery worth millions of dollars stolen during the audacious heist in Paris.
It was the biggest robbery of an individual in France for more than 20 years – and made front pages around the world.
Now, almost a decade on, the case is finally coming to court.
Why has it taken so long? Will Kardashian give evidence? And who exactly are the “grandpa robbers” facing trial?
Here’s everything you need to know.

Kardashian at the Siran Presentation on the day of the robbery. Pic: Rex Features
What happened?
Two years after Kardashian and rapper Kanye West tied the knot in an ostentatious week-long celebration spanning Paris and Florence, the Kardashian-West clan were back in the French capital for Paris Fashion Week.
More on Kim Kardashian
Related Topics:
Her then husband had returned to the US to pick up his Saint Pablo tour – but Kardashian, along with her sister Kourtney and various members of their entourage, remained in Paris, staying in an exclusive set of apartments so discreet they’ve been dubbed the No Address Hotel.
Nestled on Tronchet Street, just a stone’s throw from Place de l’Opéra, and close to the fashionable Avenue Montaigne, the Hotel de Pourtalès is popular with A-list stars staying in the French capital.
A stay in the Sky Penthouse, the suite occupied by Kardashian, will currently set you back about £13,000 a night.

Kardashian was staying at the Hotel de Pourtales
On the evening of 3 October, after attending a fashion show with her sister, Kardashian remained in the apartment alone while the rest of her convoy – including her bodyguard Pascal Duvier – went out for the night.
At about 2.30am, three armed men wearing ski masks and dressed as police forced their way into the apartment block – and according to investigators, they threatened the concierge at gunpoint.
Two of them are alleged to have forced the concierge to lead them to Kardashian’s suite. He later told police they yelled at him: “Where’s the rapper’s wife?”
Kardashian said she had been “dozing” on her bed when the men then entered her room.
She has said she believes her social media posts provided the alleged robbers with “a window of opportunity”.
“I was Snapchatting that I was home, and that everyone was going out,” she said in the months after the incident.
The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star vividly described the attack in a police report, as reported in the French weekly paper Le Journal du Dimanche.
“They grabbed me and took me into the hallway. They tied me up with plastic cables and taped my hands, then they put tape over my mouth and my legs.”
She said they pointed a gun at her, asking specifically for her ring and also for money.

Police guard the entrance to the Hotel de Pourtalès the day after the robbery
Kardashian says they carried her into the bathroom and put her in the bathtub. She said she was wearing only a bathrobe at the time.
She had initially thought the robbers “were terrorists who had come to kidnap me”, according to a French police report taken in New York three months after the robbery.
Kardashian told officers: “I thought I was going to die.”
According to police, the robbers – who left the room after grabbing their haul, escaped on bicycles with items estimated to be worth about $10m (£7.5m), including a $4m (£3m) 18.88-carat diamond engagement ring from West.
After they had left, Kardashian said she escaped her restraints and went to find help. After speaking to detectives, she immediately returned to the US on a private jet and later hired a completely new security team.

Kardashian shows off her $4m ring on Instagram
What was stolen?
As well as her engagement ring, Kardashian said the thieves took her large Louis Vuitton jewellery box, which she said contained “everything I owned”.
In police reports given to the French authorities at about 4.30am on the night of the alleged robbery, Kardashian listed these items as having been stolen:
• Two diamond Cartier bracelets
• A gold and diamond Jacob necklace
• Diamond earrings by Lauren Schwartz
• Yanina earrings
• Three gold Jacob necklaces
• Little bracelets, jewels and rings
• A Lauren Schwartz diamond necklace
• A necklace with six little diamonds
• A necklace with Saint spelt out in diamonds
• A cross-shaped diamond-encrusted Jacob cross
• A yellow gold Rolex watch
• Two yellow gold rings
• An iPhone 6 and a BlackBerry
Police recovered only the diamond-encrusted cross that was dropped by the robbers while leaving.
It’s likely the gold in the haul was melted down and resold, while the diamond engagement ring that is now so associated with the robbery would be far too recognisable to sell on the open market.

Kardashian at the Siran Presentation on the day of the robbery. Pic: Rex Features
What will happen in court?
The hearing will begin at the Court of Appeal of Paris – the largest appeals court in France – on 28 April and is scheduled to last a month.
It will consist of a presiding judge, two professional assessors, and six main jurors.
The hearing involves more than 2,000 documents and there are four civil parties.

Kardashian at the Balenciaga show on the day of the robbery. Pic: Rex Features
Who is being tried?
There were initially 12 defendants in the case, but one person has died and another has a medical condition that prevents their involvement. This means 10 people – nine men and one woman – are standing trial.
Five of them, who were all aged between 60 and 72 at the time of the incident, face armed robbery and kidnapping charges. They are:
• Yunice Abbas
• Aomar Ait Khedache
• Harminv Ait Khedache
• Didier Dubreucq
• Marc-Alexandre Boyer
Abbas, 72, has admitted his participation in the robbery. In 2021, he published a book about the robbery, titled I Kidnapped Kim Kardashian. In 2021, a court ruled he would not benefit financially from the book.
Aomar Ait Khedache, 69, known to French crime reporters as “Old Omar”, has also admitted participating in the heist but denies the prosecution’s accusation that he was the ringleader.
The remaining five defendants are charged with complicity in the heist or the unauthorised possession of a weapon. They are:
• Florus Heroui
• Gary Mader
• Christiane Glotin
• François Delaporte
• Marc Boyer
Among those, Mader was a VIP greeter who worked for the car company Kardashian used in Paris, and Heroui was a bar manager who allegedly passed on information about Kardashian’s movements.
With many of the accused now ageing and with various serious health conditions, and some having spent time in jail following their arrest, all are currently free under judicial supervision.
If found guilty, those accused of the more serious crimes could face 10 years to life imprisonment.

Kardashian at the Off-White show three days before the robbery. Pic: Rex Features
Will Kardashian give evidence?
Yes.
Lawyer Michael Rhodes said Kardashian has “tremendous appreciation and admiration for the French judicial system” and “wishes for the trial to proceed in an orderly fashion in accordance with French law and with respect for all parties to the case”.
A trainee lawyer herself, Kardashian has become a high-profile criminal justice advocate in the US in recent years.

(R-L) Kanye West, Kim Kardashian, Kourtney Kardashian, Kris Jenner in the front row three days before the robbery. Pic: Rex Features
Why has it taken so long to come to court?
There was initially a manhunt after the robbery, with French police under pressure to prove that Paris’s security was not in question.
Just the year before in 2015, the capital had been shaken by terrorist attacks by Islamic militants, in which 130 people were killed, including 90 at a music event at the Bataclan theatre.
French police initially arrested 17 people in the Kardashian case in January 2017 – three months after the robbery – assisted by DNA traces found on plastic bands used to tie her wrists. Twelve people were later charged.
It was ordered to be sent to trial in 2021 – at a time when limited court proceedings were happening due to multiple COVID lockdowns, and France was holding its largest ever criminal trial over the November 2015 terror attacks.

Kardashian at the Givenchy show on the day of the robbery. Pic: Rex Features
What has Kardashian said about the incident?
Kardashian has described the robbery as a “life-changing” moment. She took three weeks away from filming her reality TV show Keeping Up With the Kardashians, and took a three-month break from social media.
In a March 2017 episode titled Paris, Kardashian first spoke publicly about her ordeal.
She described first hearing a noise in her apartment, and calling out, thinking it was her sister and assistant: “At that moment when there wasn’t an answer, my heart started to get really tense. Like, you know, your stomach just kind of like, knots up and you’re like, ‘OK, what’s going on?’ I knew something wasn’t quite right.”
She went on: “They asked for money. I said, ‘I don’t have any money’. They dragged me out to the hallway on top of the stairs. That’s when I saw the gun, clear as day. I was looking at the gun, looking down back at the stairs. I was like, I have a split second in my mind to make this quick decision.
“Either they’re going to shoot me in the back or if I make it [down the stairs] and the elevator does not open in time or the stairs are locked, there’s no way out.”
Three months later, she told a Forbes Power Women’s Summit she had changed her approach to posting on social media: “They had followed my moves on social media, and they knew my every move and what I had.”
She added: “It was definitely a huge, huge, huge lesson for me to not show off some of the things that I have. It was a huge lesson to me to not show off where I go.
“It’s just changed my whole life, but I think for the better.”

West and Kardashian at the Off-White show three days before the robbery. Pic: Rex Features
In October 2020, Kardashian told US interviewer David Letterman she feared she would be raped and murdered during the heist, and that her sister had been at the forefront of her mind during the incident.
Speaking on My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, Kardashian said: “I kept on thinking about Kourtney, I kept on thinking she’s going to come home and I’m going to be dead in the room and she’s going to be traumatised for the rest of her life if she sees me… I thought that was my fate.”
When speaking to French police about the impact the robbery had had on her three months after it, Kardashian said: “I think that my perception of jewellery now is that I am not as attached to it as I used to be. I don’t have the same feeling about it. In fact, I even think that it has become a bit of a burden to have the responsibility of such expensive jewels.
“There is nothing of sentimental value to compare with the act of going home and finding one’s children and one’s family.”
She went on to describe Paris as “not the right place” for her, and didn’t return to the French capital for two years following the robbery.
Kardashian has since said in a 2023 episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians that she did not purchase any jewellery in the seven years following the robbery, kept no jewellery at her home and only wore items that are either borrowed or fake.
She said the realisation that material items don’t matter has made her “a completely different person in the best way”.
Trending
-
Sports3 years ago
‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year ago
Story injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports1 year ago
Game 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years ago
MLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years ago
Japan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years ago
Game-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business3 years ago
Bank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway