After serving more than 20 years in prison for a first-time, non-violent drug offense, Alice Marie Johnson is a free woman. As we all know, after Kim Kardashian flexed her celebrity in front of President Donald Trump, he commuted her sentence. According to Johnson, Kardashian said she would not give up on her and she did not. Now after months of phone calls and emails, Johnson and Kardashian met for the first time yesterday (June 13).
In an interview with Hoda Kotb from the Today Show, Kardashian opened up about her passion behind Johnson’s case, saying, “It became this mission that I just didn’t want to give up. I think to some people it might seem like, ‘Okay, Kim made a phone call to the president.’” She continued, “We had been in talks and working on this for seven months.”
Johnson also admitted she was not aware of Kim Kardashian, saying, “As soon as I found out who she was, I started getting every magazine I could find. I started reading everything that I could about her. And everyone was amazed. And I was amazed, too.”
Kardashian also went into detail about her meeting with Trump.
While it’s phenomenal that Kim Kardashian helped Alice Johnson to be released, it is also important to acknowledge Topeka Sam. She is a formerly incarcerated activist who worked with a producer at Mic on the video Kardashian saw. She also had an ongoing relationship with Johnson, telling XONecole, “We were doing videos with Ms. Alice for years…and maybe we got [at most] 10,000 views—but it wasn’t being shared in a way that [the Mic video was shared]. I heard [Kim Kardashian] talk about the universe, and people talk about their faith and how their spirit moves in different ways. For me, when she saw it, [I believe] she felt compelled to activate. And for whatever that’s worth, she did it. As a woman of God, I understand that she was used in this by God.”