‘Rob & Chyna’: No such thing as bad publicity

Last week, E! renewed “Rob & Chyna” for a second season. The “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” spin-off followed Rob, the only Kardashian brother, and his fiancee, Blac Chyna, as they prepared for the birth of their baby. Though the news may have been a surprise to anyone who caught that recent report from TMZ that said the show was “hanging by a thread,” the network decided to give the show another shot.

Why? “Rob and Chyna’s romance struck such a chord with our viewers, who were engaged in their story even before we started filming the first season,” E!’s executive vice president of programming explained in a statement.

Was that what struck a chord, though? The series showcased plenty of serious issues between the couple, already controversial because Chyna’s ex, the rapper Tyga, is dating Rob’s half-sister, Kylie Jenner. Sunday’s episode kicked off with a montage of Rob and Chyna arguing. The series premiere was titled “Are You Still Texting Bitches?,” a direct quote from Chyna to Rob. So we’re going to theorize that “romance” was probably not the main reason why this show got picked up.

A likelier reason (and one that makes a lot of sense) is best symbolized by what happened over the weekend, when Rob and Chyna proved once again they have a true Kardashian skill: the ability to fuel interest in their television show with real-life drama. About 24 hours before Sunday’s special episode, which featured the birth of their baby girl, Dream Kardashian, social media lit up with news of a bizarre incident between Rob and Chyna — and reports that the couple broke up.

Multiple sites have waded through the mess to produce timelines of what happened, but the gist is this: On Saturday, mysterious notes started showing up on Chyna’s Instagram account from a “hacker,” who claimed that Chyna had taken the baby and left Rob, and that she had been cheating on him. And that she was just using him all along to trademark the Kardashian name. The hacker posted messages that claimed to be proof of Chyna’s wrongdoings, but everything has been deleted.

As the internet tried to figure out what was going on, Rob took to Snapchat to film videos of himself alone in the house. “I got the Christmas tree all set up for Chyna and the baby, but they left me … I’m pretty upset and I’m pretty sad, cause it’s about to be Christmas and I want to be with my baby,” he said. Then, Chyna reportedly created a new Instagram account where she posted a long statement and she denied cheating on Rob, but implied that he was the hacker, and implored him to get help.

Anyway, stories that captured Saturday’s drama all noted the wildly suspicious timing: The fact that the “Rob & Chyna” baby special was scheduled to air the next day. Perhaps anticipating this, Rob wrote on Instagram, “This isn’t for some ratings, this is my real life so please understand I’m just being open right now.”

Would viewers actually believe that? At the end of the day — and perhaps more importantly to E! — it’s unlikely that die-hard Kardashian fans really care. It doesn’t really matter if Rob and Chyna’s fight is the real thing. These viewers are deeply invested in the Kardashian drama no matter what.

Judging by the amount of coverage Rob and Chyna’s implosion got over the weekend, it all just helped lend more publicity toward the Sunday special. And better yet for the network, it’s just more fodder for the second season.