Now that a judge has declared Kim Kardashian to be legally single and completely out of her marriage with Kanye West, she’s officially dropped her old last name from social media.
After a tumultuous split from her former husband, who now legally goes by Ye, Kardashian was finally given the divorce she sought out a year ago. The court filing from March 2 granted Kardashian permission to revert to her famous maiden name, which she promptly did on both Instagram and Twitter. Gone is Kim Kardashian West — she’s simply Kim Kardashian again.
Though this is seemingly the end of the divorce proceedings — at least for now — it will most likely not be the end of the ongoing drama between the former couple.
After being married for seven years, Kardashian pulled the plug on the relationship in February 2021. And while at the time of the divorce filing, the breakup seemed like it was going to be somewhat painless, according to TMZ, it turned out to be anything but. The couple had been on the outs for months prior to this, with them living apart and Ye taking shots at Kardashian and her famous family. The months following the divorce filing were a bit quiet, though, with some even thinking the couple would reunite. Kardashian’s support during all the Donda events — even showing up in a wedding dress — fueled those rumors.
But then Ye claimed he’d “never seen the divorce papers” in an interview with Revolt ... in November. By this point, Kardashian had already moved on with Pete Davidson, and unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know how Ye feels about this relationship.
In a months-long tirade across social media, Ye has blasted Davidson and Kardashian. His rants have included everything from claiming he wasn’t allowed at his own child’s birthday party to making attempts at scaring Davidson off Instagram time and time again. Ye made it pretty clear that a reconciliation with Kardashian was his goal, but in her court filings, she very much said that she wanted to be divorced. She told the court, "Kanye has been putting a lot of misinformation regarding our private matters and co-parenting on social media which has created emotional distress,” she said.
The very public verbal abuse was enough for Kardashian to get her divorce from Ye. However, his team has hinted at not honoring the prenup because of a formality — his name has been legally changed to Ye and the old paperwork lists him as Kanye West, according to TMZ. It also appears that his team is maintaining he didn’t write the social media posts that Kardashian called into question for this filing. Nevertheless, his legal team said in a statement that he now wants to focus his “entire attention” on his kids, according to E! News.
For now, Kardashian’s found herself a win in this whole mess. Though she’s no longer a “West,” her popular KKW fragrance still has the “W” initial and there’s no word on if that will change at any point. Perhaps a rebrand is in order in the coming months.
Photo via Getty/ David Livingston