Photograph: Startraks Photo/Rex Features
What critics dubbed “America’s Royal Wedding”, Kim Kardashian has filed for divorce from NBA star Kris Humphries after only 72 days of marriage.
Filmed by E! Network, “Kim’s Fairytale Wedding: A Kardashian Event” reportedly cost over $10 million.
But why would anyone spend $10 million on a wedding?
Because E! Networks reportedly paid $15 million dollars to Kardashian and Humphries for the rights to film the event. The premiere to Part 1 of “Kim’s Fairytale Wedding: A Kardashian Event”had 4.4 million viewers on Oct. 9th and part 2 had 4 million. Since then E! Networks have reran the episodes a total of at least 27 times, with an average viewership of 900,000 people. That equates to over 32.7 million viewers that have watched the event.
Talk about some major cash that could be made off of that kind of syndication!
Was this a publicity stunt for the Kardashian brand?
Americans were not surprised that the wedding was purely a business decision after learning of the divorce. The British Royal Wedding drew hundreds of millions of viewers from around the world so why not profit off of a fake wedding?
After signing a multimillion dollar television contract and a prenuptial agreement there was nothing to lose. The Kardashians received an enormous amount of free publicity and were reported to make a profit of at least $5 million.
Are you surprised?