PIERS MORGAN: My sincere, heartfelt 10-point tribute to the Kardashians

I knew eventually that 2020 would provide one tiny glimmer of good news amid all the relentless barrage of coronavirus-led misery and chaos.

If we just wait long enough, I prayed every night, then something will happen somewhere on the planet that unites us all in a glorious outbreak of unconfined joy and happiness.

That moment arrived today with the announcement that the Kardashians are bringing to an end the reality TV show that turned them into globally renowned imbeciles.

Yes, after 14 years and 20 seasons, they’re finally throwing in the diamante-encrusted towel on the world’s worst TV show, an unctuous weekly orgy of dumb-ass douchebaggery that follows the vacuous, talentless lives of the most shameless, grasping family in America.

Officially, the Kardashians claim they pulled the plug.

‘We’ve decided as a family to end this very special journey,’ their statement said. ‘We are beyond grateful to all of you who’ve watched us for all of these years – through the good times, the bad times, the happiness, the tears, and the many relationships and children. We’ll forever cherish the wonderful memories and countless people we’ve met along the way.’

Awwww.

The truth, as with all things on Planet Kardashian, is rather less rosy.

Ratings on the latest KUWTK season on E! Network bombed to an all-time low of 800,000 viewers, after once peaking at over 10 million.

Nobody, it seems, wants to keep up with the Kardashians anymore.

However, as we celebrate the end of this catastrophically debased, value-defunct destroyer of our cerebral matter, it’s time to acknowledge that they have done some good with their ludicrous antics.

To give them due credit, the Kardashians have given us a veritable masterclass in how NOT to behave in life.

Here are ten awful life lessons they’ve given the world:

1. How to exploit a sex tape to turn yourself into a billionaire celebrity. 

Let’s be clear, the Kardashians are only famous because their most well-known member Kim had sex with a boyfriend on camera, it was mysteriously leaked, and she then conspired with an adult entertainment video company to make millions out of it. By pure coincidence, this all happened after her great friend Paris Hilton became a household name when her own sex tape was leaked. ‘Maybe that’s how some people heard about me, but I didn’t launch my career off of that,’ said Kim, who launched her career off of that.

2. How to make $20 million out of a 72-day marriage. 

Kim wed basketball star Kris Humphries in 2011, milked the wedding for massive commercial gain, and filed for divorce just 10 weeks later. Bemused Humphries later said the experience was ‘brutal’ and ‘embarrassing’ but insisted it wasn’t a fake marriage. ‘It was 100% real!’ he exclaimed. No mate. You got played. But look on the bright side, at least you escaped. Look what a longer marriage to Kim has done to poor Kanye!

3. How not to write a book. 

There have been some truly awful literary works in history but nothing to quite rival the diabolical drivel spewed out in ‘Kardashian Konfidential.’ All you need to know about the editorial integrity of this tome is that one line reads: ‘We didn’t set out to be celebrities.’ Yeah, right, just like Donald Trump didn’t set out to be rich. The even more dreadful audio version was described by one reviewer as ‘like a bunch of zombies learning how to speak.’

4. How to have the mother from hell. 

I’ve only met Kris Jenner once, but that was enough to understand that beneath the steely-eyed, botox-frozen smirk lies an even colder heart and ruthless scheming brain. One of the very few times her daughter Kim has ever expressed regret for anything came after she got her kit off for an adult magazine. ‘I’m sorry I did Playboy,’ she said. ‘I was uncomfortable.’ Who would make a young woman do such a thing? Where was her mother to protect her? Well, it was actually her mother Kris who beseeched: “Go for it, they might never ask you again. Our show isn’t on the air yet. No one knows who you are. DO IT!” Way to go, Mom..

5. How to be a disgusting narcissist. 

Obviously, nobody on God’s earth loves the Kardashians as much as they love themselves. But to exemplify the sheer scale of their horrifying self-absorbed egotism, consider what Kim did after the terror attack at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England. ‘I’m praying for everyone in Manchester,’ she wrote on Instagram. ‘This is truly so senseless & heart breaking. I can’t imagine the fear and agony these parents must be going through searching for their kids. My heart goes out to Ariana Grande. I love you.’ To illustrate these heartfelt words, she posted a photo of herself and Kendall partying at a concert with Grande, all laughing their heads off. It’s hard to imagine a more repulsively tone-deaf thing to do – yet it would have seemed perfectly normal to the Kardashians who all genuinely believe the entire world revolves around them.

6. How not to be a sibling. 

We all have issues with brothers or sisters, but has there ever been a more spiteful, bitchy, vile bunch of platinum-clawed horror stories than this lot? Kim called Kourtney and Khloe ‘psycho, jealous bitches’ and on another occasion branded Khloe an ‘evil, ugly little troll’. Kylie told Kendall that she was ‘going to grab a knife and stab her multiple times in the throat’. And Kourtney slapped Kim around and screamed repeatedly ‘I will f**k you up!’ Lovely people!

7. How not to be a feminist. 

I used to quite like Kim Kardashian in the early days, right to the point she suddenly started posting topless bird-flipping selfies claiming they were empowering statements of feminist liberation. They weren’t – they were statements of shameless cynical exploitations of flesh for cash and designed to make her millions of impressionable young female fans think the way to succeed in life is strip off and made rude hand signals.

8. How to make a virtue-signalling twerp of yourself without even realizing it. 

Kendall made a Pepsi commercial in which she was filmed smilingly offering a can of the drink to a police officer as a ‘sign of peace’ in the middle of a staged demonstration with lots of beaming happy-clappy protesters – prompting Martin Luther King, Jr.’s daughter Bernice King to tweet a picture of her father being held back by police, with the caption: ‘If only daddy would have known about the power of #Pepsi.’ Pepsi pulled the ad after a ferocious backlash and apologized for ‘putting Kendall Jenner in this position’ as if she was incapable of working out for herself that this was a monumentally stupid idea. To be fair to Pepsi, she wasn’t.

9. How to win a ‘You’ve got to be f*cking kidding me???’ award.

Kim released a new emoji – ‘Kimoji’ – of herself as the Virgin Mary, sparking a furious reaction. As a Catholic, I found the fact she was pretending to be Jesus Christ’s mother offensive enough, but the whole concept of her positioning herself as any kind of virgin was laugh-out-loud ridiculous.

10. How to be a shockingly hypocritical non-ally. 

The Kardashians love to pretend they’re kind, caring, sharing, empathetic woke liberals. That pretence lasted right to the point Kris’ husband Bruce Jenner transitioned into Caitlin Jenner. I’ve seen Cheetahs move slower to distance themselves from the poor woman who told me when I interviewed her two years ago that she had stopped speaking to any of them. Though to be honest, I’d pay a lot of money to be disowned by the Kardashians.