Originally appeared on E! Online.
It wasn’t just Kim Kardashian who was forever changed the night of the Paris robbery.
When intruders broke into “The Kardashians” star’s hotel room in 2016 — tying her up and making away with millions of dollars’ worth of jewelry — her stylist and childhood friend Simone Harouche was asleep on the first floor of the duplex suite. Now, while testifying in Paris, Harouche is sharing her experiences that night.
Though asleep at the time the robbers entered the hotel suite, Harouche said she awoke to the sound of Kardashian pleading with the intruders on the level above.
“We’ve been friends since we were little girls,” the stylist explained in court on May 13, per NBC News. “So, when I heard this sound, it was very different, and it woke me up, because it was a sound that I had never heard from Kim. It was terror.”
Harouche continued, “What I heard specifically was, ‘I have babies and I need to live. Take everything, I need to live.’”
READ: Kim Kardashian’s Paris robbery in her own words
Upon waking and hearing the commotion, Harouche — who said she has switched careers to become an interior designer following the trauma of the robbery — locked herself in the bathroom and texted Kourtney Kardashian and the family’s bodyguard for help. After the robbers left, Kim returned downstairs.
“She was beside herself, I’ve never seen her like that before,” Harouche noted in her testimony, per Reuters. “She just was screaming and kept saying we need to get out of here, we need help, what are we going to do if they come back.”
The 45-year-old noted that for Kardashian, the robbery “changed her life forever,” according to NBC News, adding the reality star “now has a completely different lifestyle.”
For her part, Harouche said the robbery has left her “very fearful,” sharing she’s been to therapy for post-traumatic stress and remains sensitive to loud noises.
While Harouche was on the stand, one of the defendants, Aomar Ait Khedache — who has denied being the robbers’ ringleader, per Reuters — asked the judge if he could pass a message to Harouche.
“I won’t ask you to forgive me it would be too easy, things are confused in my mind,” he wrote on the message which, per NBC News, was displayed on a screen in the court room. “I can’t find the words. Please know that if there was a hole I would jump in it.”
Harouche declined to share a response with Ait Khedache.
Kardashian is likewise scheduled to testify in the court room on May 13.
PHOTOS: Kim Kardashian robbery, 2018, back in Paris
Kim Kardashian has written a personal essay in which she is advocating for the release of the Menendez brothers who are currently serving life sentences for the murder of their parents. In the essay, published by NBC News on Oct. 3rd, she writes, “The trial and punishment these brothers received were more befitting a serial killer than two individuals who endured years of sexual abuse by the very people they loved and trusted.”
