In the most recently aired episode of the reality TV show “The Kardashians,” socialite and entrepreneur Kim Kardashian questioned whether the United States ever landed on the Moon.
In a clip making its rounds on social media, Kardashian admitted in a confessional that “I center conspiracies all the time,” adding that she believes the Moon landings were faked, one of the most persistent conspiracy theories that has survived for decades, despite overwhelming evidence debunking it.
“I think it was fake,” she says in the video. “I’ve seen a few videos on Buzz Aldrin talking about how it didn’t happen. He says it all the time now, in interviews. Maybe we should find Buzz Aldrin.”
Unsurprisingly, Kardashian’s eyebrow-raising comments were quickly rebuked on social media.
“Yes, we’ve been to the Moon before… six times!” interim NASA administrator Sean Duffy tweeted in response to the video. “[NASA Artemis] is going back under the leadership of [president Donald Trump],” he added.
“We won the last space race, and we will win this one too,” he added, perhaps referring to the threat of China making it to the Moon first in the upcoming years.
Aldrin became the second person, after Commander Neil Armstrong, to walk on the Moon during NASA’s Apollo 11 mission in 1969. Within the next following three years, NASA sent another five crews and a total of 12 astronauts to the lunar surface.
It’s unclear what Kardashian is referring to, since Aldrin has never used his fame to deny that the US landed on the Moon over half a century ago.
As Reuters noted in 2022, an interview of him pointing out that animations used by broadcasters at the time didn’t tell the full story were quickly twisted by conspiracy theorists as supposed evidence that the Moon landings didn’t happen.
Pushing ahead, a baffled-sounding Kardashian seized the opportunity to get more information about our efforts to explore the cosmos.
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