Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Kim Vs. Kanye: The Divorce’ on Max, A Two-Part Exposé About The Power Couple’s Breakup, Told From Both Sides

When Kim Kardashian and Kanye West got married in 2012, they were two celebrities whose fame truly exploded in the public eye. Kim Vs. Kanye: The Divorce, now airing on Max, likens them to America’s royal family, a power couple made even more powerful because of their media savvy, but it seemed like the tremendous exposure it was also their undoing. In two parts, this docuseries details their relationship and its complete downward spiral from both Kim and Kanye’s points of view, offering both sympathetic and also skewed versions of their sides of the breakup.

KIM VS. KANYE: THE DIVORCE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: An aerial shot of the skyscrapers of Los Angeles. Kanye West’s lawyer, Nick Salick, calls to an associate to bring him Kanye’s pre-nuptial agreement. “This is the inside story of a two-year legal battle,” a graphic onscreen explains.

The Gist: There are two episodes of Kim Vs. Kanye: The Divorce. The first focuses on the couple’s relationship from Kanye’s perspective, how he married into a family who courted fame for the sake of fame, and how he, according to this version of the story, he was an artist purely focused on music and was deeply uncomfortable with the level of attention he received. Each half of the show is meant to be a subjective version of events, and Kanye’s side is incredibly charitable toward him: not only does it suggest that he’s a humanitarian as much as he is a musician, it explicitly states that before Kim married him in 2012, she was a “d-list” celebrity who benefited greatly from the exposure their relationship provided. The show emphasizes his mental health struggles and his unresolved grief over the death of his mother Donda, and how he sought a partner who could provide the support he needed and lost in the wake of her death. In losing so many people, including his wife, that were so important to him, he ended up spiraling out of control (eventually making anti-Semitic comments which caused him to lose most of his professional partnerships, as well as his Jewish divorce lawyer). Part one of the series is almost a lament: If only Kanye received the support he needed, both professionally and personally, he wouldn’t have lost so much in his life.

Part two, however, is more sympathetic to Kim and paints Kanye as a man who was so controlling within their relationship, that it’s hard to imagine someone like Kim could stay with him for months, let alone years. Kanye’s social media posts about Pete Davidson, his anti-Jewish comments, and his overall volatility are used against him to make it clear that Kim should get away from him for her own good. The message is that Kim has never wanted for fame nor money, and ultimately, Kanye became too much of a liability to her, and an actual threat to her safety, once she exhausted her options trying to get him help.

Certainly the truth of the entire situation lies somewhere in the middle of these two episodes, or can be woven together from aspects of part one and part two. It’s tricky to frame people as victims, abusers, manipulators, or anything else, from a distance, especially when one of the people involved so clearly needs (and resists) getting help for mental health. While the divorce is hard to look away from, knowing that Kanye is seriously ill just makes the entire situation much more difficult to analyze.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of?: Kim Vs. Kanye is told in two parts, a he-said, she-said style documentary. Discovery+ has developed several shows in the same vein, like Johnny Vs. Amber, which presented both sides of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s legal claims against one another, and Vardy Vs. Rooney: The Wagatha Trial, about the court case between two famous footballers’ wives. And of course you can draw comparisons to Keeping Up With The Kardashians thanks to this show’s liberal use of footage from that show.

Our Take: Both sides of the Kim-Kanye story include less-than-charitable depictions of both of them. There are the accusations that Kanye was deliberately painted as crazy on Keeping Up With The Kardashians once Kim and Kris realized he might not be good for their brand. There’s also footage from that same show featuring Kanye controlling Kim’s image, wardrobe, and actions (which is backed up even further by his ex, Amber Rose, who described all the ways he also controlled and slut-shamed her when they dated). Most of what’s featured in Kim Vs. Kanye: The Divorce is content you’ve likely already seen either online, on social media, or on Keeping Up With The Kardashians, and the series just helps string all of these public moments from their lives together into two diverging narratives. The show attempts to be fair by including the best and worst versions of Kim and Kanye, and by the end, it’s obvious that the point here isn’t to convince the audience to take a side, it’s to make sure we understand that this divorce is much more complicated than we thought, and that Kim and Kanye are flawed, occasionally well-intentioned, and self-promotional, and completely toxic when combined.

Of course the show ultimately just begs one question: Is a documentary about a relationship destroyed in part by the media circus part of the media circus? Is it just a dog eating its own tail?

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: A photo of Kanye and his new wife, Bianca Censori, appears onscreen, along with a graphic that states, “19th May 2023: Bianca Censori confirms she is newly married to Kanye West.”

Most Pilot-y Line: “In terms of the Kardashian brand, Kim and Kris knew they had to cut Kanye loose.” If there’s one thing this show makes clear, it’s that the Kardashian brand is an entity which must be protected at all costs.

Our Call: While there are some interesting perspectives offered here, especially from Kanye’s divorce attorneys (the tenth attorneys he’s hired since his divorce proceedings began!), most of this show features talking-head interviews with entertainment reporters who are clearly familiar with the couple but don’t feel like they lend any major credibility or earth-shattering information about the situation. Unless you’re a Kardashian Kompletist who needs to see every show featuring Kim, you can SKIP IT.

Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.