Kim Kardashian’s ex-assistant Stephanie Shepherd has finally revealed why she got fired in 2017.
Shepherd defended her friend and former boss for terminating their professional relationship in the “nicest” way, sharing in a recent interview that they were both “crying” when they made the mutual decision.
“I just inherently felt like, ‘It is time to move on. I don’t know if I have anything more I can contribute to this.’ I think she probably felt that and saw that,” she said on “The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast” on Oct. 23.
“She’s like, ‘I want you to [thrive]. You need something more. You have this thing — pursue that. I’m supporting you [with] whatever you need.’”
In fact, Shepherd described her termination as “the most beautiful uncoupling.”
“We have never been closer. She is still someone that I go to for personal and professional advice all the time,” she shared. “But I think it was just that feeling inside where I was like, ‘OK, it’s time for me to move on.’ And I didn’t really have a plan. But I just knew that it was time for me to try something different.”
Fortunately for the influencer, she learned so much under Kardashian’s wing that she was able to hit the ground running when she went off on her own.
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“It’s a machine, and it is meticulous. I always say it is my graduate school,” she said of working for the reality star.
“Because I learned everything that I know about sending an email to an agent or speaking to a manager or booking glam or finding a photographer or dealing with product development or working with a publicist. Every single step of everything that you have to know about being an entrepreneur in the entertainment business I learned from working under Kim.”
Shepherd noted that she finds it strange that the public is still fixated on her firing all these years later.
“It was a long time ago. It’s really also interesting to be identified for a job that I had 10 years ago,” she said.
Page Six exclusively reported in 2017 that Kardashian had offloaded Shepherd after their relationship soured while working together for four years.
A source claimed at the time that the “Kardashians” star, now 43, was annoyed with Shepherd, 34, for doing an interview with Refinery29 earlier that year.
Shepherd had infamously discussed intimate details about Kardashian’s life with her now-ex-husband Kanye West, gave more intel on the Skims founder being robbed at gunpoint in Paris in 2016 and claimed that she “did all of [Kardashian’s] laundry.”
Kardashian addressed the firing herself during a 2017 episode of “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” sharing that Shepherd “wanted to go in a different direction.”
“I respect that. I love giving that encouragement to whoever I’m working with,” she said at the time. “Just because people stop working together doesn’t mean that they’re feuding and stop being friends.”
Shepherd agreed, telling E! cameras that they still spoke every week.
The two entrepreneurs have since maintained a friendship, and Kardashian even attended Shepherd’s star-studded wedding this past June. Kris Jenner and Khloé Kardashian were also in attendance.
