NPR's smart kids are picking on Kim Kardashian

NPR’s smart kids are picking on Kim Kardashian

Eleven minutes of Kim Kardashian was more than enough for the hundreds of NPR listeners who complained to the National Public Radio ombudsman after the reality diva appeared on "Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me!" over the weekend.

June 18, 2015 4:05 PM PT

The smart kids have been picking on Kim Kardashian.

Fans of National Public Radio’s “Wait Wait ... Don’t Tell Me!” have jumped all over the NPR ombudsman -- and, by association, Kardashian -- after the reality-TV star appeared over the weekend on the comedy game show’s “Not My Job” segment.

“Kardashian’s presence on the show sent several hundred listeners over the top,” Elizabeth Jensen wrote Wednesday. “By the dozens, they say they are ‘disgusted’ and ‘disappointed,’ and a handful are sure the show has ‘jumped the shark.’”

It wasn’t anything Kardashian said or did during the segment that had public-radio patrons’ panties in a wad; the fact that she was invited to spend a whole 11 minutes on the program was sufficiently offensive.

Some listeners threatened to pull their support or said they’d already canceled their memberships, Jensen said.

Kardashian “has no business in any civilized forum,” one open-minded NPR listener wrote.

For her part, Mrs. Kanye West was pleasant, answered multiple-choice questions about another famous Kim (Jong Un) and hinted to listeners that she was in on the joke when it came to the concept of her book “Selfish,” which contains 445 pages of Kim K. selfies.

“It’s riveting, I know,” she said flatly to host Mike Pesca.

Pressed for her take on duck face vs. hot-dog legs in selfies, she noted: “Towards the middle of the book, there’s a lot of duck face going on. In recent years I’m, like, too cool for duck face, so that doesn’t happen. I mean, I get it, it’s a bunch of selfies, it’s silly, but it’s all my memories.”

Not in the fashionista’s memory? The correct spelling of one famous designer’s name. Though maybe it’s burned into her brain now, after a little public shaming from social media folks who know which letters to use.

“Why did Georgio Armani discontinue my favorite foundation???,” Kardashian tweeted over the weekend. “I’m on my last bottle & everyone I know uses this!!! Please make it again!”

The Armani account answered Monday, including a snippy coda that would warm a grammar Nazi’s heart: “@KimKardashian Dear Kim - let us know which one you need and we’ll send it to you. And Mr. Armani’s first name is Giorgio.”

Ouch.

In her public thank-you tweet Tuesday, Kardashian at least owned her mistake.

“Thank you so much and my apologies on the spelling error,” she wrote. “this expecting Mommy is a tad sleep deprived. ;-)”

In her defense, on the NPR show, she did correctly identify “the Eternal Bosom of Hot Love” as one of Kim Jong Il’s nicknames.

Can’t win ‘em all.

Follow Christie D’Zurilla on Twitter @theCDZ and Google+. Follow the Ministry of Gossip on Twitter @LATcelebs.