Ryan Seacrest knew ‘Keeping Up with the Kardashians’ would be a "great show" as soon as they filmed the pilot clip.
The 45-year-old TV mogul served as executive producer of the E! reality show since its debut in October 2007, and after it was revealed this week that it will be coming to an end in 2021, Ryan has looked back on the early days of the series.
Ryan said he was approached to film a show about the Kardashian family by the family’s matriarch, Kris Jenner, who pitched the idea of filming a family barbecue at their home for the pilot episode.
He recalled: "It was about 14 and a half years ago, [Kris Jenner] was looking to do a show with the family. I – as a producer at the time – was looking for my first series to produce. We met and I remember they were going to do a barbecue at their house. She said, ‘Why don’t you send a camera up and shoot this barbecue?’ I said, ‘Great, we’ll do that.’ "
But Ryan and his team hit a bump in the road early on, when they realised they didn’t have a camera and had to run to Best Buy to get their hands on a cheap one.
He added: "We don’t own a camera. So we had to go get a camera from Best Buy."
When they eventually started to film the family, Ryan knew he had an instant hit on his hands, after recording seven minutes of "great" footage from the barbecue.
Speaking during Wednesday’s (09.09.20) episode of ‘Live! with Kelly and Ryan’, he explained: "There was yelling, there was laughter, there were hugs – all of the ingredients to make a great show. We made a seven-minute tape out of it and we showed it to E!, and initially the executives said, ‘We can’t commission a show on seven minutes.’ They pushed back … We put the show on the air weeks later."
The Kardashian family – including Kris, her daughters Kourtney, Kim, and Khloe Kardashian, and Kendall and Kylie Jenner, as well as son Rob Kardashian – made the "difficult decision" to end their reality show after 20 seasons, noting that the series set to air in early 2021 will be the last.
In a statement, Kim Kardashian posted on social media: "To our amazing fans – it is with heavy hearts that we’ve made the difficult decision as a family to say goodbye to ‘Keeping Up With the Kardashians’.
"Without ‘Keeping Up With the Kardashians’, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I am so incredibly grateful to everyone who has watched and supported me and my family these past 14 incredible years. This show made us who we are and I will be forever in debt to everyone who played a role in shaping our careers and changing our lives forever."