For the first time since helping to get her sentence commuted, Kim Kardashian has met Alice Marie Johnson and she’s dishing on the moment she told the 63-year-old great grandmother the good news.
Johnson had been imprisoned for 21 and a half years for her non-violent involvement in a drug ring. She got into the multi-million-dollar cocaine ring after she had to file for bankruptcy and couldn’t support her family. And things took a turn for the worse when she got divorced and her youngest son died in a motorcycle accident.
Kardashian told NBC’s “Today Show” on a segment airing June 14 she had learned about Johnson’s case last year and worked for seven months to get her freed. The first step she made was calling up senior advisor Ivanka Trump, with whom she discussed wanting to help women. That led to a meeting with President Donald Trump two weeks ago, which occurred despite others’ concerns.
“My family’s always supportive,” Kardashian says. “There might have been people around like, ‘Are you sure you should go to the White House? Maybe you shouldn’t go.’ To me, this has nothing to do with politics, this has to do with people.”
Still, the mom of three forged ahead with the meeting, breaking the ice with Trump by bringing up his past as host of “The Celebrity Apprentice.”
“I first said that ‘I am here because I really wanna know why you kicked Khloé [Kardashian] off ‘The Apprentice,'” Kardashian shared, which gave Trump a laugh.
Then, the pair got to business about Johnson and Kardashian noted Trump “had compassion” for Johnson “right away.” Afterward, the reality star told Johnson she would get to go home.
“I thought it was an attorney call when my case manager was waiting on me — and it was — but I didn’t know that Kim was coming in,” Johnson said. “I believe she said ‘You can go home … Are you ready to go home?’ When she said that, I went into full-fledged, Pentecostal, holy dance. I started screaming and jumping. People were listening. I’m telling you. I was dancing, I was jumping, I was screaming. I was doing everything.”
Kardashian said she had been surprised by Johnson’s initial silence on the phone, believing she had already heard the news.
“I know her personality enough that she would have been screaming or something and I said, ‘Wait you don’t know? And she was like, ‘Know what?’ And I was like, ‘You’re going home.’ And she screams and cries and we all just cried on the phone,” Kardashian recalls.
And Johnson has been thankful to Kardashian, praying for her and her husband Kanye West.
“Right now, my prayer focus for you was in Psalm 105: ‘Touch not my anointed and do my prophet no harm.’ Kim has been anointed to do this. And no one better not touch her — even with their mouth.”
While some have celebrated Kardashian’s work in getting Johnson freed, others have been taking issue with the president teaming with the reality star to get it done for apparent political gain.
“The Alice Johnson pardon is fantastic news… full stop…. but it is also a bit terrifying that a celeb like Kim Kardashian can suck up to Trump and instantly get results. America, presented by E!”
“I can be happy for Alice Johnson and still recognize that Trump is using her pardon as a political tool to shield against charges of racism because I am not an idiot.”
Still, Kardashian, who has been vocal about disagreeing with Trump, says she hopes her actions can inspire people to have a dialogue with politicians.
“You can have an effect over them for the greater good of other people,” she says, nothing of Trump’s harsh stance on drug offenses that his “mind is being changed already.”
Kardashian said she plans to bring other cases like Johnson’s to the White House.
