We Should All Be Mad That This Happened

Look, we get that Kim Kardashian belongs on top of not just one but a ton of lists about the most obnoxious people. As far as public figures go, she's an interesting one in a way that has nothing to do with her own actual personality and everything to do with how she and her mother have managed to package that personality to make bajillions of dollars. She's not designed to be one of the most beloved women in America. But Kim Kardashian is also frequently surrounded by the paparazzi, and today that escalated to the point where Kardashian was pulled over for speeding — because the paparazzi were chasing her.

The argument that follows most celebrities when it comes to the issue of the press and the paparazzi usually echoes something along the lines of "well, didn't they ask for this when they decided to be famous?" This is especially true for people like Kardashian, who became famous...well, mainly for being famous, so it's not like they can claim that love of their craft overpowered their love of privacy.

But here's the thing: No one (let me repeat that: no one) deserves to be made to feel unsafe and stalked.

Here's what happened: Kardashian was speeding down an LA freeway, struggling to evade the five (five) cars that were following her. Oh, and a paparazzi helicopter looming overhead. When the police pulled Kardashian over for the speeding the paps jumped out of their cars in the middle of Los Angeles traffic to get shots of Kardashian and the incident (that they caused) going down.

She wanted to be famous — so what? Putting your face out there does not give hordes of strangers permission to stalk you, and it certainly does not erase your right to be unhappy with that stalking.

The press attention Jennifer Lawrence got between the first Hunger Games movie and her Oscar win got so bad that she'd find strange men with cameras sleeping on her front lawn just to get a picture of her. There's footage (that I will not link to here, as that gets more attention/clicks back to that video) of Lindsay Lohan cowering and sobbing in the back of a car as dozens of paparazzi surround and trap her. The fact that Kardashian is famous for wanting fame does not make her more deserving of that kind of treatment. (Let's also remember that this is a thing that literally killed Princess Diana .)

The police are — quite understandably — pretty pissed at the paps, as what they did risked on just Kardashian's life and their own, but everyone on that freeway's. They are reportedly "looking further into the incident," but they were only able to give a ticket to one of the paps, as the rest got away.

Kardashian, meanwhile, also got a ticket. Which brings us right back around to Jennifer Lawrence (doesn't everything?), and that related thing she said to Vogue this summer:

If I were just your average 23-year-old girl, and I called the police to say that there were strange men sleeping on my lawn and following me to Starbucks, they would leap into action. But because I am a famous person, well, sorry, ma'am, there's nothing we can do. It makes no sense.

It's OK, Kim and Jen, it's never happened to us but we still feel you.

And now, a song about the paps that will sooth us instead of making us rage further: