Kim and Kanye Take the Maternity Ward

Before I’d even stirred yesterday morning, my phone had flashed more times than Lindsay Lohan during a night on the razz. An eleventh hour deluge of New Year’s invites? Even better: ‘IT’ ‘HAS’ ‘HAPPENED’, my inbox read, ‘KIM’ ‘IS’ ‘KARRYING’. It turns out 2012 ended not with the end of mankind, but with the only event that could rival its import: Kim Kardashian, princess of the reality television kingdom, is pregnant with Kanye West’s child. West made the announcement himself, pausing an Atlantic City concert to draw a ‘shout of for his baby mama.’ Trumps announcement cards, doesn’t it? As newspapers across the globe frantically pieced together new front pages, gossip columnists, fans and the rest of the Kardashian brood tweeted support for the pop culture’s hottest couple. Since, hysteria for the Kimye bairn has trod on that for the Wales’, with one title even piecing together a digital construction of what the child will likely look like as it approaches puberty. Kreepy.

Meet the parents: Kim and Kanye

Indeed, the reaction has been cosmic even by celebrity standards; for those not acquainted with Kanye, Kim and her clan, it must be head-scratching stuff. Some might even question whether (brace yourselves) Kim’s pregnancy is any different to any other. At those people, I can only laugh: this will be the tot to end all tots; the tot to make Romeo Beckham’s Burberry deal look like a park play-date. Even without the rap star father who’s become one of the world’s most lucrative artists, this rugrat’s got the whole glossy-locked, buxom-derriered Kardashian dynasty to fall back on, which is alone enough to get Suri Cruise quaking in her Louboutins. Way back when in 2007, Paris Hilton’s BFF hit the headlines for starring in a sex-tape with then-beau Ray J. Since that time, and with the help of her so-called momager Kris Jenner, Kim has catapulted herself and her family to dizzying heights of fame. With the unfathomably successful Keeping up with the Kardashians detailing her every last mani-pedi, a string of endorsement deals and the obligatory high-profile split (or five), Kim’s influence is at its zenith; it’s little wonder the baby news is huge news to so many Kardashianites. When she jetted into London with her sisters last November to launch their own line at high-street store Dorothy Perkins, the 32-year-old beauty caused the kind of chaos this country normally only glimpses when it snows. Young women (and men) sobbed to breathe in the same air as the reality powerhouses as paparazzi camped outside the Dorchester 24/7 to get their money shots. This is the woman who called time on a 72-day marriage with Minnesota basketball player Kris Humphries because ‘her heart wasn’t connecting’ and still managed to seem like the injured party. For some time now, Kim has proved herself inviolable to the burnout of fellow reality big shots. Her entering motherhood, then, isn’t just another milestone in her particularly glitzy life; it’s a turning point for her millions of worshippers across the world.

Phenomenon: Kim, second left, with the rest of her famous family

That’s not to say that the reaction isn’t at least partly down to this being chipper news for the starlet and her achingly gorgeous mob; we care about the tyke-to-be because it comes at the close of a trying year (as they go) for Kim, and serves as the culmination to a roundabout love story with West. When she announced her split from blink-and-you’ll-miss-him-hubby Humphries in late-2011, thousands were quick to scoff at Ms. Kardashian’s lack of moral fiber; accusations of her profiting from magazine coverage of the wedding were bandied around as Kim sought refuge in LA, leaving her family to carry out damage limitation in front of every TV crew they could. Throughout 2012 Humphries lingered on gossip sites like a bad smell, reportedly protracting the divorce and dishing out subpoenas like they were Christmas cards. It’s inexplicably buoying to see Kim moving on from a time she’s understandably more than a tad embarrassed about. And then there’s West. As fans of Keeping Up and its three spinoffs well know, the rapper-cum-fashion icon enjoyed a friendship with Kim long before they got together eight months ago, albeit a toe-curlingly awkward friendship brimming with more sexual tension than Dancing on Ice (5 days to go). One of Kanye’s latest tracks, Cold, has shed the most candid light on the pair’s previous near-misses: ‘And I’ll admit,’ it goes, ‘I had fell in love with Kim, around the same time she had fell in love with him.’ Surely enough to melt even Humphries’ heart, no?

Fairytale abandoned: Kim and Kris during their 2011 wedding

The big question, of course, is what the bundle of joy will mean for the Kardashian brand. Fiercely ambitious, Kim is frequently seen on Keeping Up soaring from photo-shoot to photo-shoot aboard a private jet, and it’s exactly this sort of media assault that has kept her and her siblings in the spotlight for such an unprecedented stint. Big sister Kourtney has given birth twice since the series begun six years ago, and she and (married) youngest sister Khloe have taken noticeable steps back from the lens as family life has taken priority. In one interview barely more than a year ago, Kim famously declared ‘The show could go on for years, but when the fun stops so will we.’ I have every finger krossed that I’m wrong, but I can’t help but wonder just how fun the club appearances, chat shows and travelling will seem to Kim once she’s got a baby wailing in that private jet with her.