Mail: Kim Kardashian & Lewis Hamilton’s relationship is a ‘textbook showmance’

In the past two weeks, Kim Kardashian and Lewis Hamilton have been popping out in public constantly. All of the photos are mega-exclusives, which is why only a handful of major outlets are covering them. Kim and Lewis went to Coachella, then they went shopping for rugs, then they went to Malibu and had dinner at Nobu. A few days ago, a photographer got pics of Kim and Lewis cavorting on a Malibu beach. You get the idea – Kim and Lewis have hard-launched their relationship and they want everyone to know that they’re really, really happening. Well, the Daily Mail isn’t convinced! The Mail thinks all of this is a showmance or maybe even a fauxmance.

Dressed down in oversized jumpers and sunglasses strolling across the car park of a luxury rug store in Los Angeles, they looked like any other couple shopping for homewares. But this wasn‘t just ‘any other couple’ and the purpose of their outing was not to pick out new carpets. For why would two people worth a combined £1.6billion with an army of assistants at their fingertips be running their own errands?

In fact this was no suburban shopping expedition but a thinly veiled PR stunt by two of the most brand-conscious figures on the planet – Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton and the reality star Kim Kardashian. What has played out between them over the past four months has been, in my opinion, one of the most expensive, elaborate and utterly unconvincing ‘showmances’ to date.

An industry insider tells me: ‘It’s a blatant set up. But Kim knows what she’s doing. “Kim and Lewis interiors shopping?” It’s an easy link to “They are moving in together” and the interest in them as a couple is fuelled for another week. If Kim wanted a rug, she would have the very best retailers coming to her house where she could pick one from the comfort of her sofa.’

The 45-year-old beauty and shapewear guru admitted on her sister Khloe Kardashian’s podcast recently that she had not been to a supermarket in 15 years, apart from for a set-up scene for their hit Hulu reality show Keeping Up With the Kardashians. Kim admitted: ‘I feel like we went to [organic store] Erewhon on our show. But before that, like maybe 12 years, it’s probably like 15 years.’

Because if Kim Kardashian does not want to be seen, she will not be. So it’s hard to believe in the less than four months Kim and Lewis have been ‘an item’, the ten times they have been ‘spotted’ are by accident.

A major clue is the fact that every time the couple are snapped it’s by the same photography agency – Backgrid. It’s an open secret in the industry that if a celebrity has been photographed by the LA-based agency it often means the pictures are staged or a photographer has been tipped off by the star or their publicist. Kardashian, who has been performing in the media circus for almost two decades, is known, industry insiders tell me, to have close ties with the agency – dating back to her early days when she was a fame hungry socialite.

As one source told me: ‘If Kim is pictured by them, it’s almost always on purpose. You could not get more well-versed in creating a very specific public image than Kim. But she’s playing an amateur game here: this is a textbook showmance with Lewis. It’s farcical.’

The rug outing was, of course, captured by Backgrid, and then there are the most recent pictures of the couple frolicking in the ocean on a surfing excursion in Malibu. Running down a seemingly empty beach, they fling themselves into the sea, the mother-of-four clinging to her ‘boyfriend’ as the waves crash around them. They appear not to notice the paparazzo stationed metres away from the beach and, tellingly, they do not appear to have any security guards with them. Which is almost unheard of for Kim, who was left ‘traumatised’ after she was robbed at gunpoint by eight masked men in Paris nearly a decade ago as millions of dollars’ worth of jewellery was taken.

[From The Daily Mail]

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Here’s the thing: while I absolutely agree that these photoshoots are almost all set-ups and that the relationship reeks of performance and showmance, isn’t it also possible that the relationship is also real? One thing doesn’t preclude the other – yes, Kim is setting up photoshoots, likely with Lewis’s permission. They’re going out of their way to perform their relationship. But I also believe that they’re both so rich, this would all be pointless if they weren’t actually dating too. You can date someone for real AND exploit the relationship for attention, you know? In Lewis’s case, I think he’s trying to get more name recognition in the US, which would mean more lucrative sponsorships and a significant brand expansion. On Kim’s side, I think she was just single for a long time and she wanted to change the subject, and what better way to do that than dating a nice-looking F1 driver who needs her help?

PS… While Backgrid is a photo agency known for doing these kinds of set-up exclusive shoots with various celebrities, Backgrid also outbids other agencies for legitimate exclusives too, for photos which weren’t setups. My point is that just because Backgrid gets the photos, it doesn’t mean that every Backgrid photo is a set-up.