Cara Delevingne Is Joining Kim Kardashian on the Next Season of American Horror Story

After more than a decade and a half of being a reality TV fixture, it’s easy to forget that Kim Kardashian was once a fledgling actor, too. In 2008, she appeared in the Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer parody Disaster Movie, and followed it up with minor parts in the surfing drama Beyond the Break, CSI: NY, the legal comedy Drop Dead Diva, and Tyler Perry’s Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor. Since then, however, she’s largely stuck to playing versions of herself on the big and small screen, with cameos in everything from 2 Broke Girls to Ocean’s Eight. But now, that’s all about to change. 

On April 10, the multi-hyphenate posted a cryptic teaser to Instagram which revealed that she would be starring alongside Emma Roberts in the twelfth season of American Horror Story, due to arrive this summer. The new installment will mark Roberts’s return to the Ryan Murphy-helmed franchise, after having appeared in five previous seasons (2013’s Coven, 2014’s Freak Show, 2017’s Cult, 2018’s Apocalypse, and 2019’s 1984), and will be titled Delicate. Halley Feiffer, who has previously penned episodes of American Crime Story: Impeachment, is taking on the role of showrunner and, per The Hollywood Reporter, partly basing her scripts on Danielle Valentine’s forthcoming novel Delicate Condition. 

Poised to land on shelves this August, the book’s log line reads: “Anna Alcott is desperate to have a family. But, as she tries to balance her increasingly public life as an indie actress with a gruelling IVF regime, she starts to suspect that someone is going to great lengths to make sure that never happens. Crucial medicines are lost. Appointments are moved without her knowledge. She’s sure she’s being followed. And when she finally does get pregnant, someone breaks into her house and steals the ultrasound photograph of her baby. But despite everything she’s gone through, not even her husband is willing to believe that someone is playing twisted games with her. Then, her doctors tell her she’s lost the baby. Despite her grief, Anna ignores the grave-faced men lecturing her—because she can still feel the baby moving. Isolated in a remote snowbound town, Anna is sure that whoever has been following her is closing in. And as her symptoms become more terrifying, she can’t help but wonder what exactly is growing inside her.”

It’s not yet clear who Roberts and Kardashian will play, though the show’s network, FX, has confirmed that the latter’s part has been written specifically for her. (Kardashian and Ryan Murphy are friends, and the prolific producer was reportedly impressed with the former’s Saturday Night Live hosting gig in 2021.) In a statement to The Hollywood Reporter, Murphy described Kardashian’s role as “fun, stylish, and ultimately terrifying,” adding that “this season is ambitious and unlike anything we have ever done.” More exciting casting news followed on April 26, when Deadline announced that Kardashian and Roberts would be joined by Only Murders in the Building star Cara Delevingne, though little is known about her character either.

Filming on the anthology series began earlier this month in New York. For Kardashian, its release could mark the start of a brand new chapter in her eclectic career. After all, Murphy has a proven track record of bringing cultural icons into the Hollywood fold: just three years after he cast Lady Gaga as a bloodsucking countess in American Horror Story’s fifth season, Hotel, she went on to headline A Star Is Born and secured an Oscar soon after. If Delicate lives up to the hype, who knows what the future might hold for Kim.