Kim Kardashian has been through the relationship wringer — she was married to music mogul Damon Thomas from 2000-04, famously hitched to basketball player Kris Humphries for 72 days in 2011, and most recently announced her split from Kanye West after six years of marriage and four kids together. But the rumour mills have been heating up that she’s found herself a new bloke: CNN reporter Van Jones.
Van Jones is decently well-known in America, but when I read a bit about these rumours a few months back (yes, I’m a slut for Kardashian gossip, so sue me), as an Aussie I had to do my research to figure out who the hell he was. And when I read up on him, I couldn’t help but shout to no-one in particular that I LOVE THIS FOR KIM.
Who is Van Jones?
Well as I mentioned earlier, Anthony Kapel “Van” Jones is a commentator on US television network CNN, but there’s a lot more to him than that. A law graduate from Yale University and a card-carrying Democrat who is passionate about clean energy — what a nice change from Kim’s outspoken Trump-supporting ex! — Van has hosted political shows on CNN, including Crossfire, The Messy Truth, The Van Jones Show and The Redemption Project with Van Jones. He’s also a published author, having penned the New York Times bestsellers The Green Collar Economy, Rebuild the Dream, and Beyond the Messy Truth. The bloke has also won a freaking EMMY AWARD for his work on The Messy Truth VR Experience with Van Jones.
Aside from his environmental work — which saw him appointed as Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation under Barack Obama‘s administration in 2009 — he also works tirelessly for criminal justice reform, which is how his path crossed with Kim’s (more on that later).
Also — he went kinda viral after Joe Biden won the presidency for getting choked up on telly. I just — what a guy.
Is Van Jones married?
No. So basically, Kim and Van aren’t doing anyone dirty if they’re actually dating. Van was married to Jana Carter, but after 14 years of marriage they split in 2019. They have two kids: Mattai and Cabral, who he has asked for joint custody of in his divorce proceedings.
How did they meet?
While we don’t know exactly when they met behind-the-scenes, the first time they were publicly linked in a professional sense was in 2018 when they were both keynote speakers at Variety and Rolling Stone’s Criminal Justice Reform Summit. I’ve been in a Van Jones Instagram vortex all morning, and from what I can see, Kim first pops up that same year in 2018 when they both went to Donald Trump‘s White House to speak to the then-President about criminal justice. Van praised Kim for being “an incredibly smart, effective, humble and determined advocate”.
You may recall that Kim has been involved with urging leaders to overturn prison sentences and is studying for her law degree. Off the back of this, Kim has appeared on Van’s CNN shows as a panellist and popped up again last year on his Instagram account (where he called her his “friend”) to talk prison reform during COVID and to plug her TV show The Justice Project.
Van has raved about Kim Kardashian a lot of the years, telling host Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens Live that Kim is “brilliant” and “she’s incredibly persuasive and and persisent and she eats law books for breakfast.” He also told EXTRA:
She takes these cases seriously. It’s embarrassing to go into a meeting with Kim Kardashian, you’re the attorney and she’s not and she knows more than you by far, and that happens all the time. She is so prepared, she is so passionate, she reads the letters that she gets, and is always trying to figure out how to be helpful.
Are Kim Kardashian and Van Jones dating?
Well, the jury’s still out on this one. The pair have been linked for some time, but it might be a bit of wishful thinking on all our parts because they’re never been spotted doing anything other than being very professional. Even this old Insta pic is very, almost suspiciously chaste — just sling your arms around each other, fam!
The reason the rumours are bubbling to the surface again are because New York Post gossip columnist Cindy Adams wrote about the pair this week — her column didn’t even really reveal anything, just confirmed that the rumours are heating up.
Honestly, I think it’s just a lot of fans that want this to be a thing: he’s tall, handsome, smart and successful and at 52 is a fine age match for 40-year-old Kim Kardashian. They both have families, are driven, and have things — very big, important things — in common. So it’s a match made in heaven. Whether it’s happening or not, we have no choice but to stan.
