It's 3 p.m., let's watch Kim Kardashian celebrate the grand opening of a toilet
It’s 3 p.m.! Let The A.V. Club briefly make use of the waning hours of your productivity with some pop culture ephemera pulled from the depths of YouTube.
The old saw on Kim Kardashian is that she isn’t famous for anything. This was never exactly true—she’s famous for a lot of normal reasons, like her parentage and her looks and her wealth—and it’s particularly untrue today, when she commands a host of endorsements and official products and entertainment properties. But the nature of for-profit fame means you’re going to find yourself in some weird situations occasionally, and in 2010, Kim Kardashian lent her celebrity for the opening of a toilet in Times Square.
Yes, ‘twas holiday season at the dawn of the decade when Charmin solicited the help of the famed debutante to open their Times Square shittin’ hole. A press release touts “15 plush, deluxe, ADA-compliant, family-friendly and fully staffed restrooms that offer a highly engaging and interactive Charmin experience,” and if you are wondering what “fully staffed” means in the context of a shittin’ hole, it specifies that these staffers clean each stall after every use, which is fucked up. No one should have to do that, let alone in Times Square during the holidays.
Nevertheless, Kardashian was summoned to presumably lend the occasion a bit of class, despite the fact that she is a born-and-raised Angeleno. “With my recent transition to New York, I’ve been checking out all the gifts the City has to offer visitors and New Yorkers alike,” Kardashian says in the press release, weird capitalization included. “During the holiday shopping season, I’m happy to join Charmin as they give the gift of the Restrooms near Times Square.” (A relevant question: Has Kim Kardashian ever used a public restroom?) As the above video clarifies, she was presented a plastic key to the shittin’ hole by a couple of people dressed up as Charmin bears, who she seems to be a little creeped out by, and, honestly, who can blame her, those things have untrustworthy eyes.
The URL the video directs you to—“enjoythego.com”—is dormant today, but the toilets are still there. Kim Kardashian, meanwhile, continues to be famous.