The former inmate that Kim Kardashian helped free from jail a year ago is devoting the next chapter of her life to prison reform — and she’s thanking the “Superwoman” who helped set her free.
Alice Marie Johnson, who had already served 21 years of a life sentence for a first-time, nonviolent offense related to cocaine possession when President Trump commuted her sentence last June, told the “Today” show’s Craig Melvin on Monday that the cameras may have caught her running across the road to her family last year, “but I’ve been running for the people ever since, the people who’ve been left behind in prison.”
‘There are many Alice Marie Johnsons, many women, and many men, who deserve a second chance, the same chance that I’ve been given.’
Johnson, 63, gives an intimate look into her life behind bars, as well as detailing how Kardashian hired a legal team to take over Johnson’s case, in her new memoir “After Life” hitting shelves on Tuesday.
“Since I’ve come home, so many people want to know the inside story. They want to know who I am as a person,” she said. “So this memoir is my life, and it also magnifies the issue of prison reform.”
Related: This woman teaches personal finance to prison inmates
As of 2016, 1,907 federal inmates were serving life sentences for drug offenses, which are by definition nonviolent, according to a Sentencing Project analysis of federal corrections data, putting the cost of imprisoning these men and women at about $64 million in taxpayer dollars per year.
‘I think that my release has put a face on the need.’
Kardashian wrote the forward to the book, and credits Johnson with helping her “find an incredible new sense of purpose.” Indeed, Kardashian has quietly funded campaigns to free 17 inmates, it was revealed earlier this month, and has also announced that she plans to study law and take the California Bar Exam in 2022.
Related: Kim Kardashian meets Alice Johnson for the first time since helping free her from prison
Johnson believes that reality star’s seemingly newfound passion for law and social justice was actually inside her all along, however. “I think I was just the water that watered the seed,” she said. “I came along, and she blossomed. I saw a woman who was like Superwoman; she wouldn’t stop at anything for my freedom.” She also credited Kardashian’s husband, rapper Kanye West, who “did a lot of things to help me, too.”
‘I’m honored that I was a catalyst, that I helped [Kardashian] with that, but she also helped me too. We’ve both impacted each other’s lives.’
Johnson also confirmed that her life story has been optioned for a movie and TV pact with Endeavor Content and One Community, as Variety reported. While she has “several people” she’d love to see play her on-screen, she admitted that, “I like the way Angela Bassett dances.”
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