CULTURE

Kanye West Donated $1 Million To Charity In Kim Kardashian’s Name

For Kim’s 39th birthday, Kanye donated to criminal justice charities in her name.

by Jocelyn Silver

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From the look of the things, Kim Kardashian West had a pretty excellent 39th birthday. After spending a relatively low-key weekend with her sisters and girlfriends in Palm Springs, Kim came home to celebrate with husband Kanye West and their children North, Saint, Chicago, and Psalm. The kids sweetly made Kim birthday cards and brought her breakfast in bed, serving up pancakes that spelled out M-O-M (plus a heart-shaped one with a K on it). It looked quite advanced for small children. Perhaps Kanye or the chef helped, but we choose to believe that the West kids have prodigious pancake-making skills.

Breakfast in bed for Kim Kardashian West’s 39th birthday. (Instagram/@kimkardashian)

Kanye, too, really pulled out the stops for Kim’s birthday. While, like on previous birthdays and anniversaries, he filled their starkly modern house with flowers, he also donated $1 million to four criminal justice charities in Kim’s name: Cut 50, the Buried Alive Project, the Equal Justice Initiative , and the Anti-Recidivism Coalition. He gave her a certificate of the donation, saying that it was from both him and the kids.

Kanye West donates $1 million to charity in Kim Kardashian West’s name for her 39th birthday. (Instagram/@kimkardashian)

They continued the celebrations that night with a dinner for friends and family catered by Kardashian-favorite Carousel, a Middle Eastern restaurant in Glendale. There was a churro truck and a beignet stand and Kim filmed son Saint West really going to town on dessert. But we’d imagine that Kanye’s gift was a highlight of the day. Kim has dedicated herself to criminal justice reform, holding meetings at the White House and with California governor Gavin Newsom in an attempt to secure pardons for numerous inmates. She drew attention to the Cyntoia Brown case, and famously secured a pardon for 63-year-old Alice Marie Johnson. Now, she plans on becoming a lawyer.

“I just felt like I wanted to be able to fight for people who have paid their dues to society,” she told Vogue in April. “I just felt like the system could be so different, and I wanted to fight to fix it, and if I knew more, I could do more.”