Kim Kardashian and Alice Marie Johnson have finally met after months and it got emotional.
The duo sat down with Hoda Kotb on Today this morning. Kardashian and Johnson have been in contact for a while, but they have never met face to face until the other day. The 83-year-old great-grandmother is finally home.
Johnson was granted clemency on June 6 by President Donald Trump after Kardashian met with him. She served 21 years in prison for a first time nonviolent drug offense. She was involved in a cocaine operation in Memphis. She only got involved for quick money. Johnson recently lost her job, got divorced, her house was being foreclosed on and her youngest son died.
“It’s a darkness of the soul,” Johnson told Kotb. “It’s something unimaginable. You know, I know that many people experience tragedy, and they don’t get involved in illegal activities.” Johnson continued, “I couldn’t provide for the things that my children needed.”
Johnson was sentenced to a lifetime in prison in 1997 for eight criminal drug-related counts. During her time in prison, she became a role model. But due to her sentence, she wasn’t able to have parole. She could partake in a video chat program and spread her story. A video produced by Mic explaining Johnson’s situation caught Kardashian’s attention.
“At first I just retweeted [Mic’s video] and then I sent it to my attorney. I said to her, ‘Is there anything we can do here? Can we hire different attorneys? What are the options here? What can we do?'”
Kardashian explained to Kotb why a retweet wasn’t enough. “It became this mission that I just didn’t want to give up,” Kardashian said. “I think to some people, it might seem like, okay, Kim made a phone call to the president, showed up. We had been in talks and working on this for 7 months and it wasn’t an instant thing.”
Johnson revealed that she had no idea who Kardashian was at first. She was behind bars for 20 years when the Kardashian’s rose to fame.
Watch the full interview below: