Reese Witherspoon, Katy Perry, and Kim Kardashian have all traded red carpets for the kitchen
line. Here's the real story of how each one plays — the rivalries, the matches, and the
actual scores from 2026 — plus what they're building outside the court.
Part One
On The Court
The real games, the real rivalries, and the real trash talk — this is what each star has actually been doing on the court.
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Reese Witherspoon
Actress & Producer · Aunt-Niece Doubles
The Fourth of July Match That Won't Stop Trending
Forget the red carpet — Witherspoon's most-replayed sports moment of the last two summers is
a backyard doubles match against her own niece. On Independence Day, the actress squared off
with Draper Witherspoon in matching black-and-white gingham sets, trading serves and dinks in
a game she later called, simply, her "pickleball era." She played it competitively enough to
reveal her actual setup: a pink Paddletek paddle, not just a prop for the photos. The two
swapped hats mid-session — a pink smiley-face cap for a metallic red "Happy" one — the kind
of detail that only shows up when a game runs long enough for outfit changes.
"In our pickleball era."
— Reese Witherspoon, Instagram caption
What makes it a real story rather than a one-off post: the match keeps resurfacing. Style
outlets were still hunting down look-alike versions of her exact gingham fit in April 2026,
nearly two years after she first picked up a paddle, and 2026's wave of "pickleball-core"
fashion coverage keeps naming her as one of the players who made court style mainstream in
the first place. Even fellow celebrities have weighed in on her game-day look — HGTV's Sarah
Baeumler saw the photos and joked she needed to "up" her own pickleball fits. Off the fashion
beat, her family's Draper James brand has followed her onto real courts too, running pop-up
shops next to working pickleball clubs like Pickleball Kingdom in Mount Pleasant, South
Carolina, in 2025 and 2026.
Katy Perry's pickleball habit started as a family in-joke and turned into an actual annual
grudge match. Her mom got the whole family hooked on the sport years ago, and every fall since
2023, Perry has turned that habit into Light Up the Court, a charity tournament she runs with
her sister Angela Lerche in their hometown of Santa Barbara. The 2026 edition, held in April
at the Montecito Club, was the third annual — and the headline match was Katy against her own
sister. Perry tapped touring pro Connor Garnett, currently ranked World No. 5, as her partner;
Angela paired up with LA pro Wes Borrows. The exhibition went the distance before Perry and
Garnett closed it out.
Katy Perry / Connor Garnett
11
FINAL
Angela Lerche / Wes Borrows
8
It's a rivalry that's been building for three years. At the inaugural 2023 event, Perry
teamed with pro Federico Staksrud for a mic'd exhibition match against her then-partner
Orlando Bloom and pro Maggie Brascia — a match Perry won and bragged about, posting that
she'd "totally beat" Bloom in front of the whole crowd. The 2024 second annual pulled in
Ellen DeGeneres, Charlie Puth, Lauren Sánchez, and Benji Madden for a full round robin before
the exhibition matches began. By 2026, the tournament has become enough of a fixture that the
real story isn't who shows up — it's whether Katy can keep her win streak against Angela alive.
"...we've decided to use those pickle powers for good."
— Katy Perry, on why the family match became a tournament
On the equipment side, Perry plays with a Selkirk Vanguard Power Air — a small detail
compared to the sibling scoreboard, but one Selkirk has used to put her alongside NBA
veterans Dirk Nowitzki and Jason Kidd as a face of the brand.
Entrepreneur & TV Personality · Lake House Regular
Lake House Doubles, Every Summer
Kardashian's real pickleball court isn't a charity event or a stadium — it's the private
lake property in Harrison, Idaho, where her family gathers every summer, and where she and
her sister Khloé have made a match part of the ritual. This July, the pair played in matching
"Hamilton Crew" sweatshirts stitched with the No. 44, a nod to Kim's boyfriend, Formula 1
driver Lewis Hamilton, who joined the family getaway. The court sat a short walk from the
water, wedged between boat rides, dirt-bike laps for the younger cousins, and sparkler-lit
dinners — the kind of setting where a pickleball game is one part of a full day outdoors,
not the main event.
"Summers at the lake with my favorite people."
— Kim Kardashian, Instagram caption, July 2026
It's not a scored, competitive habit — Kim and Khloé play for the same reason most families
do, because it's easy to pick up, easy to laugh through, and easy to fold into a lake day
without anyone changing out of swimsuits. That said, it's a pattern that's stuck: industry
coverage of celebrity pickleball adoption has pointed to her as one of the sport's most
visible recurring faces for years running, and she's mentioned wanting to explore her own
line of gear down the road, though nothing's official yet.
What each of these three is building in the rest of their career, right now, in 2026.
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Reese Witherspoon
Founder, Hello Sunshine
Off the court, Witherspoon runs Hello Sunshine, the media company behind Big Little Lies,
Little Fires Everywhere, and her long-running book club. She spent six seasons starring in
and executive producing Apple TV+'s The Morning Show, which wrapped its run in 2025, and
she's now moving between two very different projects: reprising Elle Woods in the long-awaited
Legally Blonde 3, currently in pre-production, and voicing a role in an upcoming animated
Tinker Bell film. Draper James, her lifestyle and clothing brand, continues to expand its
activewear line, the same one supplying her pickleball fits.
Perry's music career is having a very public resurgence in 2026. Her concert film, Katy
Perry: The Lifetimes Tour – Live From Paris, premiered at the Tribeca Festival and is rolling
out in cinemas across 70 countries through Trafalgar Releasing, complete with an IMAX debut
in the US. The renewed attention has pushed her catalog back into heavy rotation, with her
monthly Spotify listener count climbing past the 90 million mark. Industry chatter has been
building for months over whether a new studio era and full tour announcement are next,
though as of this writing nothing has been made official. Alongside the music, she keeps the
Firework Foundation running as her primary philanthropic focus.
Kardashian's SKIMS empire keeps growing as her main business focus, alongside a starring role
as attorney Allura Grant in Hulu's All's Fair. Her long-running push toward an actual law
license hit a pause in 2026: after completing a six-year legal apprenticeship and passing
California's "baby bar" in 2021, she sat for the full California Bar Exam in July 2025 but did
not pass. Reports indicate she's skipping both the February and July 2026 exam dates to focus
on her workload, with insiders suggesting she may not attempt the bar again until 2027. She
continues to balance that ambition with SKIMS, acting, and her family's television projects.
