• Members of the Kardashian-Jenner family have been attending the Met Gala since 2013.
• Some of their red carpet looks have missed the mark, while others are now considered iconic.
• Kim Kardashian's outfits, in particular, have become some of the most famous worn at the event.

It's tough to imagine the Met Gala without the Kardashian-Jenner family.

Kim Kardashian made her first appearance at the event in 2013 as Kanye West's date. Since then, she, her sisters, and mom Kris Jenner have regularly made showstopping appearances at the Costume Institute fundraiser.

And while some of their outfits have made Met Gala history, others have missed the mark.

Here's a look at everything the family has worn at the annual event, ranked from least to most iconic.

Kris Jenner attended the 2016 Met Gala in a dress that was more simple than stunning.

Still, her black Balmain gown was pretty. It was custom-made for the TV star with sheer long sleeves, a mermaid-style skirt, and beaded patterns from top to bottom.

She paired it with a black choker, heavy eye makeup, and diamond jewelry.

Kendall Jenner walked her first Met Gala red carpet in a hairstyle that didn't suit her gown.

Her strapless, mermaid-shaped gown designed by Topshop made her look like a princess — especially when accessorized with a sparkling clutch and diamond necklace.

But her messy, swept-back hairstyle contrasted with the glamour of her look and distracted from her dress, making for a mismatched look.

Kim Kardashian played it safe at the same event, which she attended with Kanye West.

She wore a strapless Lanvin design, which was made from blue satin with a black lining.

The Skims founder also kept her accessories and glam simple, wearing strappy sandals, dangling diamond earrings, and a loose, wavy hairstyle.

Kendall Jenner's gray ensemble in 2025 had a corporate vibe.

She wore a two-piece set from Torishéju that included an extra-long skirt and a blazer with a peplum waist. The top was worn without a shirt beneath it, creating a plunge that showed off her diamond necklace.

Jenner looked pretty, but her understated look wasn't glamorous enough to become iconic.

In 2015, Kris wore a plain red dress to the "China: Through the Looking Glass"-themed event.

The simple Balmain design had shoulder pads, a ruched bodice, and a wrap skirt.

While Kris made the outfit more unique with statement earrings, a thick golden belt, and black pumps with gold detailing, her overall outfit wasn't the most memorable that she's worn at the event.

Kim's white dress in 2017 was pretty but massively understated.

Vivienne Westwood designed the off-the-shoulder dress, which also had long sleeves and a straight skirt.

Kim wore simple sandals, no jewelry, and a straight hairstyle to complete the minimalist look.

Kris attended the 2021 event in a suit that wasn't as flashy as expected for a member of the Kardashian-Jenner family.

She told E! News on the red carpet that her outfit included multiple pieces from Tom Ford, Alexander McQueen, and Tommy Hilfiger.

Kris also carried a sparkling Judith Leiber clutch.

She started to have more fun with her Met Gala looks in 2018.

She attended the "Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination"-themed event in a black Tommy Hilfiger design.

It had sheer sleeves, a feather-covered skirt, gold-ribbon embellishments, and amber jewels attached.

So did Kendall in 2016.

She walked the red carpet that year in a blue, tan, and white dress created by Atelier Versace.

Its halter top led to a backless, bralette-style bodice, rounded waist cutouts, and a form-fitting skirt.

The year prior, Kendall looked great in green.

She wore a sleeveless, mock-neck design made with green fabric and beads from the Calvin Klein Collection.

It was held together on each side with thin, crisscross straps and worn without accessories. The model opted for a sleek hairstyle and natural-looking makeup.

Kim started to make her mark on the Met Gala red carpet in 2016.

She attended the "Manus x Machina: Fashion In An Age of Technology" event in a futuristic look: a silver, long-sleeved dress covered in sequins and tiny mirrors.

The metallic gown was designed by Balmain and had a daring, thigh-high slit.

But she had actually gone a step further the year before.

For the 2015 Met Gala, the middle Kardashian sister wore a beaded Roberto Cavalli dress with sheer panels and a feather-trimmed skirt.

In an Instagram post at the time, she said her daring dress was inspired by a similar Bob Mackie garment Cher wore to the same event in 1974.

She looked striking at the 2025 event in an edgy ensemble.

She wore a leather Chrome Hearts look with an alligator-skin print. Its corseted top was positioned off her shoulders, and her tight skirt expanded into a mermaid-tail shape.

Though the dress was simple by Kim's standards, her accessories were interesting. She wore a hat that covered her eyes and a statement diamond necklace.

Kourtney Kardashian made her Met Gala debut in an underwhelming outfit.

She walked the 2022 red carpet alongside Travis Barker, and both wore ensembles from Thom Browne.

Kourtney's outfit specifically featured a white, cropped blouse and a unique skirt, which had bandage-style fabric up top and black pleats on the bottom.

But due to its mix of fabrics and muted colors, it almost looked like Kourtney was wearing an unfinished garment.

Kris took inspiration from Jackie Kennedy at the 2022 Met Gala.

She wore a pastel-yellow Oscar de la Renta gown that wrapped around her body. It had a single long sleeve, a shorter one that revealed her white gloves, and a thick beaded hem.

Though her '60s hairstyle made the outfit look a bit more like a costume, Jenner still looked chic on the red carpet.

In 2016, Kylie Jenner made her Met Gala debut in a daring red-carpet look.

Designed by Balmain, her metallic dress was long-sleeved and had silver sequins covering its sheer, mesh fabric. There were also large cutouts at her hips, and smaller ones beneath her waist.

She paired the sparkling look with silver sandals and a sleek black bob.

Kris wore what was arguably her best Met Gala look in 2019.

Her Tommy Hilfiger ensemble included a navy jumpsuit with a crystal star-shaped brooch attached to its deep neckline and a dramatic gray coat with oversize shoulder pads.

To make the outfit even more iconic, the Kardashian-Jenner matriarch added vibrant blue eye makeup, a bedazzled purse, and a short blonde hairstyle.

Kylie had a standout Met Gala moment years earlier in 2017.

At the time, she attended the Met Gala in a see-through Versace dress made from peach-colored mesh. The gown was decorated with beads and crystals, and its short sleeves had long, gold fringe.

Her hair, which was styled in a blonde bob, perfectly complemented her standout fashion.

Her 2025 gown was even better.

Ferragamo created her gray gown, which was perfectly tailored. It had a halter neckline, a sheer corseted bodice, and a gray skirt with beaded embellishments and a thigh-high slit.

She perfected the look with black pumps and sheer gloves.

Her wedding-themed look in 2022 was controversial, but memorable.

With its ruffled skirt, T-shirt bodice, and veil-adorned baseball cap, Kylie's outfit might have been confusing at first glance.

But the look actually honored the late designer Virgil Abloh and his brand Off-White.

Her vibrant gown popped on the 2023 carpet.

It was tough to miss Kylie when she walked the 2023 carpet, thanks to the red and blue Jean Paul Gaultier gown.

Designed by Haider Ackermann, the dress had a blue satin lining, a thigh-high slit, and an asymmetrical neckline that gave the gown a distinctive shape.

Kendall had a gothic moment at the Metropolitan Museum one year earlier.

For the 2022 Met Gala, Kendall wore a black two-piece set from Prada. It featured a mesh tank top that she wore without a bra and a full, high-waisted skirt covered in ruffles.

It might not have been Kendall's most iconic Met Gala look of all time, but it was certainly memorable — especially because she wore it with bleached eyebrows.

Kylie opted for a bold and edgy look on the 2018 carpet.

Her Alexander Wang gown was strapless and had a satin bralette connected to its long velvet skirt. There was also a cutout placed right above her stomach, and a silver zipper down her side.

Kylie wore the outfit — which also included tiny sunglasses and silver bracelets — just three months after giving birth to her first child, Stormi Webster.

Kim's 2013 Met Gala dress was so iconic that it was quickly turned into a meme.

The floral maternity gown she wore — designed by Givenchy — had a high neckline, long gloved sleeves, and a thigh-high slit that revealed her matching heels.

Critics quickly took to social media that night, comparing her outfit to everything from a couch to Mrs. Doubtfire. But it wasn't until years later that Kim told Vogue that the comments left her crying "the whole way home" from the event.

"I was very pregnant, very puffy, and bloated, and I was like, 'Oh God, of course, the first time I go I'm gonna be huge,'" she said. "That was OK with me because I never really dreamed I would be at the Met Ball. I know no one really probably wanted me there at the time."

Still, she noted that "none of the critics mattered" because the Olsen twins walked up to her that night and complimented her outfit.

Kendall looked chic in white at the 2018 Met Gala.

Whereas Kim's all-white outfit from years prior was arguably forgettable, Kendall's had flair that made it stand out.

Off-White designed her off-the-shoulder jumpsuit, which had mermaid-style pants with short trains at the bottom of each leg. Her look also included sheer white gloves, a long ponytail, diamond earrings, and glamorous makeup.

Kendall emerged as a Met Gala star again in 2019 when she wore a see-through orange dress covered with feathers.

Her iconic, sleeveless dress was custom-made for her by Versace. Its see-through fabric was decorated with beaded fringe, and its skirt had layers of orange feathers that reached the floor.

But her accessories really made this look stand out. She walked the red carpet in a giant feathered neckpiece and thick gold jewelry.

Kim was among the best-dressed stars at the 2018 "Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination" event.

She wore a gold Atelier Versace dress with a corset bodice and plunging neckline. The sleeveless garment was also metallic and had crystal cross embellishments.

And that's not to mention her hair and makeup, which were equally stunning. Kim wore a half-up, half-down hairstyle, nude lipstick, and striking contact lenses.

Kim's 2023 outfit became more iconic thanks to her daughter.

People had mixed feelings about Kim's pearl-string Schiaparelli gown and the visible shapewear in its center. But no one was more opinionated on the piece than her daughter, North West.

"I like the pearls. I just don't like that it looks like from the Dollar Store," she said of the outfit on an episode of "The Kardashians."

Kendall looked like a rock star when she walked the 2017 red carpet.

Her mesh La Perla dress was black and had a long cutout down the length of its bodice. The see-through fabric also wrapped around her body, creating a thigh-high slit in its skirt.

Kendall completed the iconic look with see-through heels, red lipstick, and a striking contour.

Kendall went pantsless in 2023, and the fashion risk paid off.

She stepped on the carpet that year in a Marc Jacobs bodysuit covered in black sparkles and embellished with silver.

But the garment's most dramatic and impressive pieces were its extra-long sleeves, which reached the floor and cascaded into trains at her side.

The now-iconic outfit was worn with platform boots and diamond earrings.

Khloé Kardashian attended her first Met Gala in 2022, and she sparkled on the red carpet.

She wore a glittering Moschino gown that was embellished from top to bottom with gold beads. It was sleek, sexy, and glamorous — and made for the perfect debut dress.

Khloé wore the piece with a black satin shawl and gloves that reached past her elbows.

Kylie stole the show in 2019.

She arrived in a lavender Versace gown with a cream-colored bodysuit underneath a layer of see-through, sparkling mesh. The dress featured a scoop neckline and feathered skirt that perfectly matched her puffy feathered gloves.

To top off the iconic look — which Kylie later dressed her daughter Stormi in for Halloween — the Kylie Cosmetics founder wore a purple wig.

Kim turned heads at the 2021 event in a Balenciaga ensemble that covered her entire face and body.

She looked unrecognizable in the all-black bodysuit, complete with gloves and a long train.

Kim wore it for the event's "In America: A Lexicon of Fashion" theme, and viewers quickly turned the fashion statement into a meme.

Kendall's most iconic Met Gala look was the see-through gown she wore that same year.

Her see-through gown matched her skin tone, creating the illusion that she was only wearing rows of sparkling diamonds.

On Instagram, the 818 tequila founder said her stunning dress was inspired by another iconic gown: the one Audrey Hepburn wore in "My Fair Lady."

Kim's borrowed dress in 2022 was scandalous and noteworthy.

She arrived at the 2022 gala wearing a piece that previously belonged to Marilyn Monroe. The sleeveless, sparkling gown was worn by the legendary actor in 1962 when she famously sang "Happy Birthday" to President John F. Kennedy.

It was later revealed in an episode of "The Kardashians" that Kim predicted backlash from people who didn't think she deserved to wear the gown.

But like it or not, Kim wearing the dress will forever be a memorable Met Gala moment.

The most iconic Kardashian-Jenner Met Gala look is also the most controversial.

The skin-tight Thierry Mugler gown Kim wore in 2019 is iconic both for its exquisite design and the borderline dangerous measures required to wear it.

The tan button-up dress had ruching from top to bottom and crystals that mirrored water droplets, both of which made it look as though Kim had just emerged from water. She even wore her hair in a wet style to enhance the effect.

But in a video for Vogue released after the Met Gala, the reality star said she couldn't sit or go to the bathroom while wearing it because the garment was so tight. She later added in an Instagram post that she had to take "corset breathing lessons" in order to wear the dress.

Ultimately, the iconic and controversial dress led many to criticize the tiny appearance of Kim's waist, with some arguing that she was setting unrealistic beauty standards.

• Crumbl collaborated with the Kardashians to release six new cookie flavors this week.
• There's one gluten-free option, two cakes, and four classic cookies.
• I'd only order one of the pastries again.

You've heard of Crumbl cookies — now get ready to try Krumbl kookies.

For the week of April 7, Crumbl collaborated with the Kardashian-Jenner family to release six flavors, which means that America's first reality TV family did a complete menu takeover. There are six brand-new cookie flavors for the five Kardashian-Jenner sisters and their mother.

You might be wondering: Why the Kardashians? Well, according to Crumbl CBO and cofounder Sawyer Hemsley, "It just makes sense."

"We've never had an entire menu takeover before, and who better to do that than the legendary ladies of the Kardashian-Jenner Family," he said.

"Iconic family meets iconic desserts," he added.

To see if this "kollaboration" — OK, we'll stop now — was really worth the hype, I decided to head to my local Crumbl and try all six cookies — and rank them from worst to best.

It's Kardashian-Jenner Week at Crumbl.

If you're not familiar with Crumbl cookies, you will be soon.

The chain of cookie shops was founded in 2017 in Utah by cousins Sawyer Hemsley and Jason McGowan. In the eight years since, Crumbl has become a fast-growing franchise — it now has over 1,000 locations across 50 states.

What makes Crumbl special is that the flavors change weekly. The brand announces its coming week's flavors on social media on Sunday night.

From personal experience, I know that Crumbl fans are devoted. I have walked by multiple shops to see lines forming out the door.

So, when I heard the Kardashians teamed up with Crumbl to create six different cookies, I knew I had to try them all.

You can order a single cookie, a four-pack, a six-pack, a three-pack of mini-cookies, or a party box, which contains a dozen cookies.

Since I wanted to try all six of the flavors, I opted for the six-pack.

A basic six-pack costs $24.99, but two of the Kardashians' options cost more — one was an extra 99 cents, while another was $1.99 extra — so my box cost $27.97.

After tax, my box of six cookies was $30.38, roughly $5 per cookie.

The Crumbl location I visited had full-size and mini-cookies on display.

They didn't look the most appetizing, but they'd been sitting out for a while.

After waiting for five minutes, I left with my special KarJenner box.

Crumbl boxes are normally pink, but the brand switched up its famous color scheme in favor of a tan box with brown lettering — this might look familiar to any Kardashian fan.

In a nice touch, the sides of the box featured the signatures of Kim, Kourtney, Kris, Kylie, Kendall, and Khloé.

Of course, Kris signed with her first and last name (Kris Jenner).

Here they are! The offerings from Kylie, Kendall, Kim, Kris, Khloé, and Kourtney are arranged clockwise from the top left.

Just looking at them, I could tell my sweet tooth was about to be overloaded.

My least favorite was Kourtney's Flourless Chocolate Cake.

Kourtney's cookie wasn't a cookie at all but a gluten-free cake topped with raspberries. It cost an extra $1.99 and was the only cookie to be gluten-free and free of refined sugar.

Crumbl calls it "a luscious, gluten-friendly chocolate cake" that's "drizzled with a velvety dark chocolate glaze and crowned with tangy raspberries."

It has 840 calories.

Right off the bat, I didn't love the glaze or the raspberry.

Maybe it's because I'm just not the biggest raspberry fan, but I took one bite of it before spitting it out. It was lukewarm and squishy (whereas I prefer my berries to be cold with a little bit of firmness).

Once I got underneath the dark chocolate glaze, which I found to be almost sour, I didn't hate this. The texture was more of a pudding-like consistency than a cake, but I didn't mind it.

If this was my only option because I was gluten-free, I would be slightly disappointed, but it's definitely not bad.

Next up was Kim's Snickerdoodle Crumb Cake Cookie.

Crumbl wrote that this cookie was "smothered in melted white chips, topped with a cinnamon streusel crunch, and drizzled with velvety white chips."

It has 780 calories.

This was so sugary I could only take a few bites.

Again, this is more of a personal preference, but I don't love a snickerdoodle. I find that the cinnamon sugar is way too sweet for me, and I also don't love white chocolate.

However, since I only took a few bites, I was able to appreciate the cookie for what it was. It was on the crumblier side, which was different from the rest of the offerings.

My favorite part was the cinnamon streusel crunch on top.

Coming in at No. 4 was Kendall's Cookie Dough Cupcake Cookie.

This is an elevated version of Crumbl's classic chocolate chip cookie.

In addition to the brown sugar cookie "packed with rich semi-sweet chips," this cookie is topped with "velvety cookie dough-inspired buttercream, crumbled cookie pieces, and the signature Crumbl Cookie Dough Bit."

At 1,000 calories, this was the highest-calorie item on the menu.

Without the buttercream frosting, this would've been an A-plus.

I think my first bite of Kendall's cookie gave me an instant cavity.

OK, not really, but it was so sweet. Too sweet. Sweet enough that I had to scrape the frosting off the top in order to enjoy the rest of the cookie.

And I'm glad I did because, without the frosting, I loved this. It was perfectly moist and had a brown, sugary (almost maple) flavor that I loved. I also really loved the crumbled cookie dough pieces and the "signature Cookie Dough Bit" on top.

However, the frosting was just not necessary.

Speaking of sweet, Khloé's Cookies & Cream Skillet Cookie slightly edged out Kendall's offering.

Khloé's cookie was the one I was most excited to try, as I love a cookie skillet.

But seeing that it was totally dark chocolate, I could almost feel the heartburn just from looking at it.

Crumbl describes this cookie as a "gooey dark chocolate cookie loaded with cookies and cream pieces, crowned with scoops of fresh vanilla bean cookies & cream mousse," all covered in a chocolate ganache drizzle.

It has 810 calories.

Unlike the frosting, the mousse was not too much for this cookie.

This wasn't as overpoweringly sweet as Kendall's or Kim's cookies, which I think is due to the dark chocolate flavoring of the cookie and the ganache.

Since the cookie wasn't as sweet, I didn't mind the cookies-and-cream mousse's sweetness, especially since it wasn't just plain buttercream frosting, and instead had the vanilla flavoring.

I didn't notice any "cookies and cream pieces" inside my cookie, which knocked a few points off. And while this wasn't as sweet, it was easily the richest cookie so I had to stop after a few bites.

In second place was Kylie's Pink Confetti Sugar Cookie.

Here's how Crumbl described Kylie's cookie, which has 860 calories: "A vibrant vanilla sugar cookie rolled in playful rainbow sprinkles and crowned with a trendsetting swirl of pink cake batter buttercream."

You can't go wrong with a sugar cookie.

Does anything beat a classic sugar cookie? Well, in this case, just one other item did.

Kylie's cookie is what I would call the platonic ideal of an iced sugar cookie with pink frosting, sprinkles, and just the right amount of sugar.

I also preferred the cake-batter buttercream to the cookie-dough buttercream on Kendall's cookie.

But my favorite offering was Kris' Classic Yellow Layer Cake.

Somewhat surprisingly, my favorite Crumbl cookie wasn't a cookie at all — it was a cake.

Kris' Classic Yellow Layer Cake is two layers of "fluffy yellow cake swirled with a decadent fudge frosting" and covered in a "smooth chocolate glaze and finished with delicate chocolate curls."

It has 910 calories and costs an extra 99 cents.

This was the only item I willingly ate more than a few bites of.

After eating this, I need to tell Kris that she's doing amazing, sweetie.

This was delicious! The cake was not dry at all, and the chocolate curls on top gave it a little bit of a crunch. Plus, the fudge frosting wasn't as sweet as the buttercream frosting on the other cookies.

I may be biased because I love yellow cake, but as someone who cannot replicate my favorite cake of all time — Entenmann's Fudge Iced Golden Cake — I know it's difficult to make a cake that's not too dry or crumbly, but not too dense either.

I can't recommend getting the six-pack, but picking your one favorite and nibbling away at it is the way to go.

To recap, my ranking is:

1. Kris' Classic Yellow Layer Cake.
2. Kylie's Pink Confetti Sugar Cookie
3. Khloé's Cookies & Cream Skillet Cookie
4. Kendall's Cookie Dough Cupcake Cookie
5. Kim's Snickerdoodle Crumb Cake Cookie
6. Kourtney's Flourless Chocolate Cake

Will I run to Crumbl again before the week ends to get a second shot at any of these cookies? I don't think so. Almost all of the cookies were sweet enough that I'll be swearing off sugar for a few days at least.

But I will be monitoring the company's socials so I know when another yellow cake will be on the menu.

• Kris Jenner says she pulled off one of her earliest negotiations in the 1970s when she was a flight attendant.
• She wasn't assigned a flight route she wanted but found a way to achieve her goal.
• She is now a businesswoman and the matriarch of a family of reality stars and entrepreneurs.

Decades before Kris Jenner became the "momager" of the Kardashian-Jenner clan, she taught herself an early lesson in business negotiation while working as a flight attendant.

During an appearance on the April 9 episode of "The Burnouts" podcast — hosted by Bill Gates's daughter, Phoebe Gates, and her business partner, Sophia Kianni — Jenner reflected on her brief stint working for American Airlines in the 70s.

"Every single lesson that I learned that I really appreciate, I think I learned from that year and a half or two years of being a flight attendant," Jenner told Gates and Kianni.

It all started when Jenner, then a fresh flight attendant, was not assigned the flight route she wanted.

"I was really hoping for Los Angeles," Jenner said. "And they kind of looked at me like, 'You're never going to Los Angeles. That would take you years to be able to build up that kind of seniority where you can go to Los Angeles.'"

But instead of accepting rejection, Jenner took matters into her own hands.

"I thought, 'OK, there's another way to get around this,'" Jenner said.

She started talking to different people in the company to find out how she could land a spot on the flight routes she wanted.

"So I just randomly walked into the scheduling office — that nobody probably dares to do back in the 70s — and I said, 'Listen, I've got a problem. This is what I need, and this is what I know you have the power to do. How can we meet in the middle? What can I do to accomplish this?'" Jenner said, recalling the incident.

Showing up at the office worked: Management offered her a spot on the substitute list instead. If anyone called in sick, she would be the one to replace them on those flights, Jenner said.

"And I figured out how to make the system work for me in the best of ways because then I had, maybe once or twice, walked into the scheduling room with brownies," she said.

Jenner said the experience taught her to pivot and not accept the first answer somebody gave her.

"It was one of the first things that I actually negotiated for myself," she said.

Since then, Jenner has become a businesswoman and a reality TV star.

She catapulted her family into superstardom by launching her family's reality series, "Keeping Up With The Kardashians" in 2007. The show concluded in 2021 after 20 seasons.

A year later, the family announced their return to reality TV for the Hulu series "The Kardashians." The show is now in its sixth season.

Reality TV aside, Jenner also manages the careers of her famous daughters — Kourtney Kardashian, Kim Kardashian, Khloe Kardashian, Kendall Jenner, and Kylie Jenner.

In 2022, Jenner told Forbes she takes a 10% cut from everything her kids earn through television and other business ventures.

Representatives for Jenner and American Airlines did not immediately respond to requests for comment sent by Business Insider.

At the end of an unnamed private road in Red River County, on a brisk fall day in 2019, Texas fire marshals approached the site of an explosion. Chunks of concrete littered the ground, while smaller debris hung in the surrounding trees. An aluminum door, blown off its hinges, had come to rest 50 feet from the site of the blast: an underground bunker that had been dug deep into the East Texas soil.

Before descending a small ladder into what was left of the bunker, the team of investigators set up a ventilation hose to clear the air. Inside, they found signs of people preparing to live for months below ground — cans of propane, a supply of ready-to-eat meals, and a fully furnished bathroom and bunkroom. The steel kitchen cabinets were blasted open and covered in blood splatter. By the stairs, near the escape hatch, investigators found the bodies of three people — Michael Bower, the bunker's owner, along with his friends Perry Fetterolf and Misty Marple.

An investigator later asked Bower's wife, who had discovered the scene, what the purpose of the bunker had been. "Doomsday," she replied.

Hours after news of the explosion broke, Ron Hubbard, the founder and CEO of Atlas Survival Shelters, set up a camera in his cluttered office and recorded a video for YouTube. Wearing a camo T-shirt and a MAGA hat, Hubbard was fuming. The 62-year-old has amassed 594,000 subscribers for his videos, whether he's testing his Remington pistol or taking viewers on a tour of one of the luxury bunkers he has installed in the mansions of the rich and famous, from the Kardashians to the Tate brothers. But his most heated videos are the ones where he passionately bashes his chief rival, Rising S Bunkers. Both firms are based in Texas, about an hour apart, and both claim to be the largest bunker manufacturer in America, catering to well-heeled preppers eager to ride out the apocalypse in comfort.

Now, in the wake of the explosion, Hubbard blasted Rising S, which had built the Red River bunker. "They don't know what the hell they're doing," he said. "They're friggin' idiots." Investigators were unable to determine the cause of the catastrophe. But Hubbard was convinced, without evidence, that a propane tank was responsible for the explosion. "You can't put propane in a bunker or it's gonna kill you!" he raged. As the video went on, Hubbard grew more incensed, until he was shouting like a revival preacher.

"Today is our September 11," he said. "The government is going to step in, and they're probably going to regulate these bunkers." Then he added what sounded like a sales pitch for his own product. "Guys, if you're going to put in a bunker," he warned, "you better do it pretty damn quick."

The video marked an inflection point in one of the most bitter and bizarre feuds in the annals of American business. In the years since Hubbard's salvo, the war between Atlas and Rising S has grown ever more contentious, encompassing multiple court battles, accusations of arson and murder, and fantastical tales of FBI double agents. There's a lot at stake in the bunker wars: Estimates put the global market for underground bunkers at more than $23 billion, and it's projected to grow to $36 billion by the end of the decade. Some 20 million Americans consider themselves preppers, and four in 10 adults believe we're living in the end times. Whoever controls the market for bunkers stands to make a killing off of humanity's fear of being killed off.

In the bunker business, paranoia is profit. But what happens when the paranoia inflicts the bunker builders? Representatives for Rising S, firing back at Hubbard, call him a "sociopath" who twists the truth to rile up his cultlike following of fans. As Rising S sees it, the conflict with Hubbard is less a feud than an unwarranted barrage from a delusional rival. But wherever the truth may lie, the dispute has wound up smearing both companies and dividing the prepper world into competing camps. As a former employee at Rising S puts it to me, "It's impossible to wrestle with a pig and not get muddy."

The feud, at least as Hubbard tells it, began in 2012, when Rising S purchased several domain names related to Atlas. Suddenly, if you searched for "atlasshelter.com," you were instead directed to Rising S's website. Rising S also published a series of articles on its website criticizing some methods Atlas used to construct its bunkers.

The moves pissed Hubbard off. At the time, he was working to establish himself as the face of the booming bunker movement. After graduating from college with a degree in welding and launching several metalworking businesses, he had caught the prepper bug and developed a bunker in the back of his shop. It turned out to be a savvy business move. Aided by his self-promotion on YouTube, bunker sales took off.

I meet Hubbard outside his sprawling factory in an industrial park in the town of Sulphur Springs, filled with dozens of bunkers in various stages of production. Some are shaped like ridged cylinders; others look like extra-large shipping containers with facades of black latticed steel. They have names like BombNado, FireNado, and GarNado (which is designed to be concealed under a garage). Most cost a couple of hundred thousand dollars, but custom builds can go for several million. Flying in front of the warehouse are the flags of some of the countries where Atlas does business, including South Korea, Australia, Canada, and Saudi Arabia.

Hubbard, a big man with intense blue eyes and a five-o'clock shadow, greets me gruffly. "You don't look like Business Insider," he says. "You look like Rising S." He suspects I've been sent by his enemies to spy on him, just as he fears that his office — which features a flag depicting the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, alongside the words "Fight, Fight, Fight" — has been bugged. "They're probably listening to us now," he tells me. A camo shotgun leans against his desk. Out of fear that Rising S will order a hit on him, he refuses to maintain a permanent home, changing hotel rooms every few days. But he does own a bunker — a cylindrical culvert-pipe model that he lived in for three days during the end of the Mayan calendar in 2012.

With the feud underway, Hubbard's archnemesis became Rising S CEO Clyde Scott, a Texas good ol' boy who raises guard dogs and drag races at a local track. Unlike Hubbard, Scott was born into a family of preppers. They lived off the land and "did everything except wear tinfoil hats," Scott once recalled on a podcast. After early brushes with the law, including a 2004 assault charge that was later dismissed, he started a company installing small storm shelters as a bulwark against Texas tornados. But over time, as his clients requested more and more elaborate designs, he wound up crafting doomsday bunkers under the name Rising S, in homage to Jesus, "the rising son." Scott enjoyed filling the bunkers with traps and hidden passages. "I watched 'Scooby-Doo' a lot as a kid," he told the podcaster. (Scott could not be located for comment.)

For a while, an uneasy detente existed between the two rivals. Hubbard maintained an open line of conversation with Scott's cousin and business partner Gary Lynch, and the two shared tips and discussed other competitors. "A Chinese TV crew might be calling you," Hubbard texted Lynch at one point. "Do not give interviews to any TV and news from China. They will just copy you and me."

"I do not give any interview to any communist country," Lynch texted back, "because they cannot even buy shelters."

But in 2019, six months before the explosion in Red River, Hubbard dropped a bombshell, releasing two videos aggressively attacking Rising S. The first, titled "Lady in Minnesota and Her Horrible Rising S Shelter," features a woman who says her bunker began leaking shortly after it was installed. "This wouldn't handle a moose so much as a nuclear blast," Hubbard says while touring the bunker. The second video tells the story of a Texas man named Steve Prewit who was arrested on federal gun charges shortly after Rising S installed a bunker for him. In the video, Prewit accuses Scott of being a government informant who ratted him out to avoid prison time for himself — a characterization that Hubbard accepts uncritically.

Rising S responded by filing a defamation suit against Hubbard. The company said it had nothing to do with Prewit's arrest, and accused the woman in Minnesota of causing her bunker leak. That October, the feud escalated further when Hubbard blamed Rising S for the three deaths caused by the bunker explosion. The families of the three people filed wrongful-death lawsuits against Rising S, which wound up being settled out of court, Rising S says.

Scott, who had avoided posting about the feud, issued a video response titled "The TRUTH About Rising S Company." Over oddly cheerful music, without getting into any specifics about the feud or the explosion, he said he would be taking the high road. "This is my first time even mentioning that I know what's going on with one of my competitors calling names and telling lies," he said. "We're not gonna engage in that."

A few days after Scott released his video, an event occurred that Hubbard viewed as a possible new salvo in the bunker war. Jue Wang, Hubbard's video editor, was shot to death after leaving Hubbard's office, which at the time was in Los Angeles. His body was found in his car in a nearby residential neighborhood, with a gunshot wound to his torso.

The shooting is still under investigation, and there is no evidence that it was related in any way to Hubbard's dispute with Scott. But Hubbard quickly released an eerie video showing Wang at work on a computer in Hubbard's office, editing what he said was Wang's last video before he was killed. "I'm not accusing them of murder," Hubbard said of Rising S. "I'm just saying, he was killed in the midst of all these videos being produced. The guy might have followed him from my office and thought it was me and shot the wrong guy. I don't know."

A few months later, Hubbard released a video called "RON Gets His Concealed Carry after the murder of HIS Youtube Editor." In it, Hubbard visits a shooting range and fires off several rounds from his .45. "If I go down," he declares, "I'm gonna go down screaming and fighting like hell, and I'm not going to go down unarmed."

In late 2021, Hubbard announced on YouTube that a judge in the defamation case had ordered that he take down several of his most incendiary videos about Rising S. Later in the video he invited his army of subscribers to repost them so they would live on even after they were wiped from his YouTube channel. His die-hard fans were happy to oblige.

"Ron Hubbard probably has a little bit of Tony Stark in him," says William Cleveland, an Atlas enthusiast who reposted one of the videos. "Combine Elon Musk with Ron Hubbard, and you'd probably have Tony Stark." Cleveland doesn't think he could ever afford one of Hubbard's bunkers, but he says "it would be neat" to own one.

Fans of Rising S, or at least enemies of Ron, also joined the fray. In March 2020, a mysterious YouTube personality who goes by the nom de guerre Bringing the Truth began releasing anti-Atlas videos, speaking in a Southern accent artificially deepened by a voice modulator. Their second video accused Hubbard of a cardinal sin in the bunker community: inadvertently revealing the location of his customers' bunkers by posting photos of them that are trackable via metadata. Bringing the Truth also created a website called Atlas Bad Shelters, which accuses Hubbard of ratting out his own customers to the IRS and copying Rising S's bunker designs. ("That's them making fake news," Ron responds.)

On March 24, 2022, Hubbard drove up to his factory amid the sound of sirens and the smell of charred copper. His office was ablaze, flames shooting from the windows. He pulled out his phone and started filming. "Someone set my building on fire to shut me up," he muttered.

The fire took out most of the office, including what Hubbard describes as his most prized possession, his collection of bird bands, a hunting accessory. In a video that Hubbard recorded that night, one of the factory workers says he saw a man throwing something at the office just before the fire started, which Hubbard suspects may have been a Molotov cocktail.

"I think it was Brad Dancer who did this," Hubbard tells me, naming a Rising S employee. "Just my gut feeling." He shared his suspicion with a federal fire investigator, texting the agent a smiling photo of himself alongside this message: "I think I found your arson. Brad Dancer. He works at Rising S. I bet everything he did it."

The investigator did not respond to Hubbard's text. Dancer denies any involvement in the fire, and there is no evidence linking Rising S to the blaze. I later call the fire station in Sulphur Springs and ask about Hubbard's theory. "He has a lot of theories," the guy responds, laughing.

Midway through our interview, Hubbard's voice suddenly gets very low and serious.

"I hope you don't fuck me and stab me in the back. I'll sue the fuck out of your magazine. I've got more subscribers and followers than y'all got," he says. "I'll go on Joe Rogan and fucking tear your magazine up if you try to even fuck with me." Later, he tells me he is horrible at getting his lawyers to sue people.

Hubbard portrays his feud with Rising S as a cosmic struggle between good and evil. When we talk, he compares Rising S to the devil and Charles Manson. At one point he compares his popularity favorably to Jesus, at another, he describes himself as Batman. When I mention that I've already spoken with Rising S, he seems hurt. "But he's the bad guy, I'm the good guy," he says. "Why would you reach out to the bad guy first?"

Despite Hubbard's fervor, the war doesn't appear to have had much of an impact on the shop floor. When I visit the following day, the factory is buzzing with dozens of workers. One recalls a time when Hubbard couldn't find his cellphone and became convinced it had been stolen and sold to Rising S. But most of the employees seem comparatively uninvested in the feud. Michael Ivie, a recent hire, is more interested in discussing chemtrails and the three city-states that run the world — London, the Vatican, and Washington, DC. "All three of them have obelisks," he observes.

Even with the ongoing court case, Hubbard kept posting. He has now published more than 15 videos about Rising S. They're among the first results to show up in Google searches for the company. They have recently accumulated several one-star Google reviews, either from disgruntled customers or Hubbard's fans.

Peter Stanton, who wanted to add a tornado shelter to his home in Arkansas, wound up being dissatisfied with both companies. He commissioned a shelter from Rising S, but felt the company overcharged him for the project, which he says soon began leaking. Once the money had changed hands, Stanton found it difficult to reach Rising S for assistance. When he came across Hubbard's videos blasting Rising S and contacted him for help, Hubbard tried to sell him on an expensive remodel. "I think it's a bunch of people who are trying to take advantage of people who are afraid of what's going on in the world," Stanton says. "They say, 'Don't worry, we're Christian and we're going to help you.' But they're just trying to milk people for money."

But Hubbard's videos seemed to have achieved the desired effect. When Rising S fired off a video in November 2023 that appeared to compare Hubbard to the cult leader Jim Jones, it got 600 views. Hubbard's shots at Rising S, in contrast, chart in the hundreds of thousands.

Early last year, Rising S finally withdrew from the field of battle. Scott, who one former employee says was worn out by the war with Hubbard, sold the company to Brad Dancer. The new owner says his first order of business was to bury the hatchet with Hubbard — "and not in his skull," he jokes, as we smoke cigarettes outside the Rising S factory in Murchison. Dancer forbade his employees from talking negatively about Atlas. "I've told my guys if I ever catch them bad-mouthing another company, I will fire them on the spot," he says. "It was a pissing match between two grown men, and I don't give a fuck about it."

Dancer, a slim man with a goatee and a mop of blond hair under a trucker cap, is wearing a shirt with several buttons undone, revealing a chain with a rooster hanging at the end. He says Rising S was less conciliatory under Scott and his cousin Gary Lynch. "Their bark and bite is pretty nasty," he tells me. "That's all it is — it's 'my dick's bigger than yours.' Mine's average, so I don't give a fuck."

Hoping to let bygones be bygones, Dancer says that he voluntarily dismissed the defamation lawsuit that Rising S had launched against Atlas, which had been inching its way through the courts. "I feel sorry for him," Dancer says of Hubbard. "If you have to go through life looking over your shoulder, being scared. I never felt like it was a war. I've always felt like, it's time to make motherfuckin' money." At the moment, the Rising S factory is much quieter than Atlas — there are only two bunkers under construction.

It's not clear, however, that Hubbard will agree to the cease-fire. After my visit to Rising S, he sends me a photograph of me sitting in his office that he took during the interview. "I am missing the check that was on my desk yesterday for $10,825,000," he texts. "Did you touch it?"

"No, definitely not," I reply.

Dropping the matter, Hubbard asks me how my interview with Dancer went. I tell him that Rising S has extended an olive branch.

"Bullshit," Hubbard texts back. Rising S, he points out, still owns his domain names. He believes they probably burned down his office and killed his editor. He wants to be awarded "everything they've got" — and even then, the war seems likely to continue.

"I just want to see justice done," he says. "I believe they need to be locked up."

Guthrie Scrimgeour is an investigative journalist based in Washington, DC, covering wealth and power.

• Khloé Kardashian said she tried to "close a lot of chapters" when she was 39.
• Kardashian, who turned 40 in June, called the process "shedding."
• Approaching midlife can be comparable to a second puberty, an expert previously told BI.

Khloé Kardashian prepared herself for her 40th birthday.

In an interview with Bustle published on Wednesday, "The Kardashians" star discussed her birthday milestone.

"When you're young, you think 40 is so old, and now I'm like, 'Wait — I feel so good!' said Kardashian, who turned 40 in June.

"I am in the best shape of my life. I'm doing new career stuff. I've only been 40 for about six months, but it's the absolute best. You don't give a shit about some of the stuff you once did," she added.

She said she intentionally "tried to close a lot of chapters" at 39.

"I called it shedding — shedding this decade of my 30s and this energy I wanted to leave behind," she said, adding that there are "so many new things" she's doing in her first year of being 40.

Turning 40 can be a daunting period. It's approaching midlife — a "biological regularity comparable to a second puberty," Hannes Schwandt, an associate professor of human development and social policy at Northwestern University, previously told BI.

"When you're young, you are typically overestimating what you're getting in the future," he continued. But not everything in life turns out the way we expect them to, and this can lead to disappointment, Schwandt said.

Aimee Pearcy previously wrote for BI that she felt disappointed when she hit the birthday milestone. "I always thought I'd be a millionaire by the time I turned 40, but here I was, living in a van, broke," she wrote.

However, she eventually came to terms with her age. "I realized that age is just a number," she wrote.

"Now that I'm in my 40s, I feel like my life is just beginning."

A representative for Kardashian did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.