Kim Kardashian has said she feared her career was finished after critics rounded on her performance in the legal drama All's Fair, before the backlash helped pull in an audience.
She admitted she thought her career was over after her acting in the show was slammed, but added it was “so funny” that the criticism drew in viewers.
Kardashian, who reprises her role as divorce lawyer Allura Grant in the second series, said: “I just thought it was so funny that people came in and wanted to hate on it so much that the hate turned into viewers wanting to see how bad it was.
“So they tuned in and they made it like a number one show for weeks on end because they were tuning in to see how ridiculous we would be, and I think there’s something kind of funny about that and special and like important to show that the critics (don’t decide).”
She added: “It's just so cool that we were able to push through that. There was a second when I thought, ‘Oh my God, my career is over, and these girls are gonna hate me because I just brought in this whole wave of hate that they’ve probably never experienced before in their amazing acting lives.’
“And then Sarah (Paulson) left me the nicest voicemail that gave me the most confidence and changed everything for me. And that is when I went for it and was like, “Okay, what do I do? We double down.”
The series was created by Ryan Murphy and stars Kardashian opposite Glenn Close, Sarah Paulson, Naomi Watts, Teyana Taylor and Niecy Nash Betts.
The first series debuted on Disney+ last year and was a success for the streaming service, despite receiving savage reviews and a 6 per cent rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
Asked what the message said, Paulson explained: “I was just saying the truth. I was just saying what I believe to be true about Kimberly is I think she's really special.
“She's a special person and I think what people are going to see this year is there were a couple of scenes in particular towards the end of the season where both Naomi and I were both like, ‘Jesus, woman’.
“I’m not saying she wasn’t good before she was. It’s just there’s been a whole other kind of level of confidence and funny and all the things that you are as a person were coming through more as a character, which I thought was just so divine.”
The new series features Kardashian's character admitting she failed the bar the first time.
The gag is a nod to the fact the reality star did not pass the California bar exam on her first attempt after taking the test in July 2025.
Responding to the joke, Kardashian said: “He (Ryan Murphy) came up with that, and he knows I'm always game.
“If there was something that I wasn't comfortable with, he would not feel comfortable even letting me say it, so he knows that I would be.
“And when I read that, I was like, ‘Oh my God, that’s genius. That is so funny to acknowledge that everyone would understand what that meant.’ And I thought it was so funny.”
The second series of All's Fair arrives on Disney+ on March 4.
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