Life isn’t quite imitating art for Kim Kardashian. The reality television mogul revealed on Saturday that she didn’t pass the California bar exam, despite playing a “very well-dressed” attorney on her new Hulu series All’s Fair.
Taking to Instagram, the 45-year-old entrepreneur broke the news to her millions of followers with characteristic candor. “Well…I’m not a lawyer yet, I just play a very well-dressed one on TV,” Kardashian wrote in her Instagram Story, acknowledging the ironic timing as her legal drama currently sits at the No. 1 spot on Hulu.
The SKIMS founder took the notoriously difficult California bar exam in late July, marking a crucial milestone in her six-year journey toward becoming a licensed attorney. However, the test proved as challenging as its reputation suggests. Despite coming close to passing, Kim Kardashian won’t be hanging her law degree on the wall just yet.
Rather than letting the setback discourage her, Kardashian struck a defiant tone in her announcement. “Six years into this law journey, and I’m still all in until I pass the bar,” she declared. “No shortcuts, no giving up — just more studying and even more determination.”
The result may not surprise legal experts who know that even top law school graduates frequently fail the California bar exam on their first attempt. The grueling two-day test consists of five one-hour essay questions, one 90-minute performance test, and a staggering 200 multiple-choice questions covering multiple areas of law.
Kardashian’s path to the bar has been anything but traditional. Instead of attending a conventional law school, she enrolled in a four-year apprenticeship with a San Francisco law firm in 2018. This alternative route requires passing California’s “baby bar” exam after the first year — a hurdle Kardashian cleared in 2021 after three failed attempts.
Interestingly, Kim Kardashian may have received some questionable study advice along the way. During a recent Vanity Fair lie detector test interview, she admitted to using ChatGPT for legal help. “They’re always wrong,” she confessed. “It has made me fail tests all the time. And then I’ll get mad, and I’ll yell at it and be like, ‘You made me fail! Why did you do this?’ And it will talk back to me.”
Despite the disappointing bar exam result, Kardashian struck an optimistic note. “Falling short isn’t failure — it’s fuel,” she wrote. “I was so close to passing the exam and that only motivates me even more.”
The law runs in the Kardashian family bloodline. Her late father, Robert Kardashian, was a well-respected Los Angeles attorney who famously served on O.J. Simpson‘s “Dream Team” during the 1995 murder trial. Kim has channeled that legacy into advocacy work for criminal justice reform, successfully lobbying for presidential pardons and prison sentence commutations.
Meanwhile, her portrayal of attorney Allura Grant in All’s Fair continues to draw viewers, even as critics have panned the series. Kardashian responded to negative reviews with humor, posting screenshots of critiques alongside the caption: “Have you tuned in to the most critically acclaimed show of the year!?!?!?”
Looking ahead, Kardashian will have another opportunity to take the California bar exam, which is offered twice annually. A source close to the star told TMZ that she decided to share the news publicly before the official results were released Sunday because she’s been transparent about her legal journey from the beginning.
For now, Kim Kardashian remains in that peculiar Hollywood limbo: playing a lawyer on TV while studying to become one in real life. As she told Graham Norton recently, she sees law as the next major phase of her career and envisions herself as a trial attorney.
