Kim Kardashian Always Wanted To Be On Reality TV, Thanks To This Classic MTV Show

It's pretty tough to remember a time when the Kardashians weren't on TV. They've let fans into their lives for seventeen seasons now, but as one of the sisters tells it, they've basically been entertainment-ready since, well, forever. Kim Kardashian's reality TV career was inspired by her family's antics pretty early on, the star recently admitted during an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. She also revealed how another long-running reality show first made her want to be a star.

Kardashian sat down to chat with Fallon on Wednesday, Sept. 11, and at one point during their conversation, the host marveled over the fact that they're currently in the midst of filming the eighteenth season of Keeping Up With The Kardashians. "Did you ever dream like, 'I’m going to be on a reality show'?" he asked the star. "I did," she replied with a sly smile and a laugh, which kind of made it seem like she was kidding.

Well, as it turns out, she wasn't kidding at all. "When I was like 12 years old, whenever The Real World came out, I was obsessed," Kardashian admitted. "And I saw it and I was like, 'This ... is what I’m gonna do.'"

Fallon then questioned why she thought that was something she could do, and Kardashian revealed how her family's antics have always drawn interest from outsiders. "I just felt like ... everyone around used to always say like, 'Ohmygod, your family is so crazy. If people only saw this.'"

The star continued to explain, "People would come up to me and be like, 'OK, no sitcom writer can write what this reality of your family is. Like, no one would believe it.' Like, OK, in season this, your stepdad will be your stepmom," she said as an example, which was a reference to when Caitlin Jenner came out as trans back in 2015. Kardashian added another real-life plot point, "Like, hey this season you're going to be married and then two months later, you're not."

Honestly, she's not wrong. The things that go on in the lives of the extended Kardashian-Jenner crew are pretty unbelievable at times. Still, though, they do deal with some relatively universal problems too, and allowing fans to see things they can occasionally relate to is a big part of why they continue to film the show, as Kardashian told Fallon.

"We love to share what we're really going through," the star confessed. "And we've found that it's been really helpful for other people that are dealing with something similar, and we love being so open about it all."

So, while most people probably can't relate to losing a $75,000 earring in the ocean while on vacation in Bora Bora, per se, a lot fans can definitely relate to sibling squabbles and complicated family dynamics, for example. Or maybe they can relate to seeing the Kardashian-Jenners deal with divorce or fertility issues or possible, life-changing health scares.

There really is something for everyone on Keeping Up With The Kardashians, which is likely one of the reasons why the world has been so interested in their lives for all these years. Of course, their over-the-top antics always make for some pretty entertaining TV, too.