“Wait, can I say that?” Kim asks, studying the expressions in the room. “I don't know if I should edit that out.”

“I think you should edit that out,” someone advises.

“With Kanye's history with George…,” Kim says, trailing off.

Solutions are offered. They could cut the president section entirely or remove just that line. “I love George, though,” Kim says sadly. “I just think he's cute. Like a cute little president.... And the [Bush] kids sent us a baby gift. Let me think about it.”

A few days later, the video goes live on Kim's app, with that line removed. The cute little president was not approved.

Because Kim Kardashian West's entire existence serves as a source of cross-platform entertainment, it might be helpful to think of those places she visits most often as “sets.” Kim Kardashian and Kanye West's 11,000-square-foot Bel Air home is the set where the bulk of her Snapchat videos are recorded. (Her mother's home, in Calabasas, is the set most recognizable to TV viewers; although Kim is frequently depicted hanging out in the kitchen, she no longer lives there.)

Kim's house is less secluded and private than you'd imagine. Rather, it's just one easily-walk-up-to-able house in a honeycomb of cul-de-sacs of easily-walk-up-to-able houses, all surrounded by a carefully guarded community gate. The neighborhood functions as a sort of free-range pen for celebrities to wander around in without hurting themselves or anyone else; within those confines, it's an absolute free-for-all. Recently, her neighbor Gordon Ramsay swung by and helped her play a prank on her chef. (They told him he was fired.) Another neighbor crashed the private baby shower she hosted for her friend, the supermodel Chrissy Teigen. (Kim said diplomatically that she believed the uninvited guest—Stevie Wonder—“wanted to stop by to say hi to John [Legend] and Chrissy.”)

Inside, the house is serene and church-like in its soft echoes, though the walls are adorned with nightmarish paintings by George Condo, the artist who made Kanye's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy album art. It's also faintly sweet-smelling. The day I visited, the pink and magenta roses covering a bench that Kanye had given Kim for Mother's Day were just starting to wilt.

Kim and I sat down in the living room on one of two matching white couches, both massive enough to accommodate a giants' orgy. (“I know, right?” Kim said when I noted their preposterous size.) I wanted to know about Caitlyn Jenner—or, more specifically, how the family prepped (as a cast) to reveal her stepfather's gender transition to the world.

When Kim was 21, she told me, “I walked in on Bruce” wearing women's clothing in the family garage, “and I went over to Kourtney's, and Kourtney was the only person that I told. We had no idea what it meant. So we went and Googled stories and found this, like, Oprah episode of this girl who had gone through a transition. But we still didn't know a lot.” Ahead of season ten's “About Bruce” special, they enlisted help. “We did meet with someone a few times when Caitlyn was—[when] that was what was going to happen. A counselor that taught us terminology—explained things to us.”

Suddenly, Kim's daughter, North, almost 3, walked into the living room, back from a trip to the park, clad in a cowgirl costume worn over purple pajama pants.

“I'm making purple noodles,” explained North, mostly to herself, throwing her small body over the couch, her arms collapsed in front of her, as of someone who has spent all day making purple noodles and now is exhausted.

“What are purple noodles, silly girl?” Kim asked.

“I'm good,” said North to the cushion.

“You want to take a nap in Mommy's bed?” Kim asked, rubbing her back.

North did not. She wanted to take a nap on top of her mother.

“Okay,” said Kim. “But I still have to talk, okay?”

In one fluid motion, Kim maneuvered the floppy toddler into a sheltered cuddle, positioning North's head behind her ear.

Madonna-and-child tendencies aside, the real-life Kim has slightly sharper edges than her celebrity character. She's frighteningly organized: She tells me that before bed she deletes every single text message and e-mail from her phone, unless it's something she still needs to respond to. Her go-to sense of humor is dry irony, used sparingly.

The week I met with her was a particularly scrutinized time, even by Kardashian Panopticon standards. If you have never seen any of the 162 episodes of Keeping Up with the Kardashians—or watched helplessly as some combination of the eldest sisters “take” the Hamptons (Khloé and Kourtney), New York (Kim and Kourtney), or Miami (Kim—or Khloé—and Kourtney)—you probably assume the general plot is as follows: Family members ham their way through staged situations, reacting to artificial drama with the subtlety of Kabuki theater. The show is 85 percent that. But the other 15 percent deals with unusual (for TV) candor about marital cataclysms, transgender identity issues, cycles of substance abuse, and the effects of crippling depression on the self and the family. Keeping Up with the Kardashians has done much more to raise awareness of the Armenian genocide than Mad Men ever did, and Mad Men is an Emmy-winning drama no one was embarrassed to admit they watched.

A few days before Kim and I sat down, a peripheral Kardashians personage named Blac Chyna (a model, dancer, eyelash-salon owner, and former friend of Kim's, née Angela White), who had previously had a son with Tyga (a rapper, né Micheal Stevenson), who was widely believed to be the current boyfriend of Kim's youngest sibling, Kylie Jenner, had just announced she was pregnant with the child of Kim's younger brother, Rob Kardashian, making any subsequent children born between the foursome a little more than kin and less than kind. (Also, Chyna had reportedly taken steps to trademark the name “Angela Renee Kardashian,” which would insinuate her not only into the family but also into the lucrative family enterprise.)