Travis Barker finally weighed in on all the chatter surrounding his history with Kim Kardashian — and whether or not it’s the root cause of Kim’s feud with Kourtney Kardashian Barker.
So, as many will know, Travis’s relationship with the Kardashian family goes back much further than when he and Kourtney started publicly dating in early 2021.
In fact, Travis and Kourtney’s friendship goes all the way back to the early 2000s, when the pair met through Paris Hilton, whom Kim was working for.
At this time, Travis was actually dating Paris — although, in his 2015 memoir, he revealed that he had his sights set on Kim.
In the book, titled Can I Say: Living Large, Cheating Death, and Drums, Drums, Drums, Travis recalled a 2006 group trip to Amsterdam, where he developed a crush on Kim, confessing that she was “fucking hot.”
“We all checked into our hotel and then rented bicycles and rode all over Amsterdam — that's what you do there. It was me, Lil Chris, my drum tech Daniel, Paris, and Kim,” he wrote.
Even though he was hooking up with Paris, Travis confessed he was “secretly checking Kim out,” noting in the book that she was simply Paris’s “closet girl” at the time.
Despite his interest in Kim, nothing happened between them on the trip. However, once both of them had split from their respective partners in 2007, Kim and Travis started getting closer.
“We went to dinner, we went to lunch,” Travis remembered in his book before admitting that he was surprised by the nature of their relationship, based on his presumptions about Kim and her sex tape, which was released around the time they started dating.
“You might think I would be doing the worst things with this girl because of her tapes, but it was the exact opposite of any other encounter I've had with a woman: With Kim, I wanted to be nothing but a gentleman to her,” he wrote. “It was so weird.”
During their brief romance, Travis recalled that he and Kim were “like little kids,” spending “a lot” of time together and even hanging out with her family.
“We’d be really sweet around each other,” he remembered, “and then when we were apart, she'd call me and say, ‘I want to see you again.’ ‘Me, too,’ I'd say.”
Despite their “sweet” romance, Travis confirmed in the book and in interviews that he and Kim never actually had sex.
“I had a crush on her, and we were flirtatious, but nothing ever happened,” he told Us Weekly while promoting the book in 2015. “She was so kind and polite, I just felt like being a perfect gentleman around her. It was a trip!”
He also made it clear that he and Kim still have a great relationship, with no awkwardness between them — which is fortunate, particularly now that they’re in-laws.
As you’ll surely know, Travis eventually wound up developing a close bond with Kourtney, Kim’s older sister, after the pair became neighbors in 2017. They went public with their relationship in January 2021 and eventually tied the knot in 2022.
Interestingly, Travis has since revealed that he purposely bought a house in Kourtney’s neighborhood with hopes of pursuing her following her split from Scott Disick, telling Kris Jenner, “I knew she was the love of my life, and I didn't even know her like that, but I just knew if I couldn't date her or be with her because she was with someone else that at least I could live by her.”
Around the time that Travis and Kourt started dating publicly, Kim was forced to shut down speculation about her history with Travis, taking to Instagram (per People magazine) to deny the “false narrative” that they “hooked up.”
But in spite of this, fans have continued to speculate that the long-standing tension between Kim and Kourtney might stem from Kim’s past with Travis.
While there isn’t a whole lot of evidence to suggest that this is the case, the most compelling argument came in the premiere of The Kardashians Season 4, when Kourtney called out her younger sister for having a bad attitude at her and Travis’s Italian wedding in 2022.
“You came to my wedding, you couldn’t be happy,” Kourtney told Kim in an explosive phone call that was filmed for the show. “You complained from the second you got there until the second you left. That’s what it’s about. Forget about you couldn’t be happy, you couldn’t be happy for me. You couldn’t be happy that I was the center of attention and you weren’t.”
Kim shot back with a denial, accusing Kourtney of having a “serious vendetta” against her and the rest of their family.
“What is it that you think so low of me? Why do you hate me so much, and why are you so angry with me? Because all of this never happened,” Kim said in response to Kourt’s accusations about the wedding. “I was so happy for you. Why would I not be happy for you?”
So with all this in mind, it’s no surprise that fans have struggled to forget that Travis was actually with Kim first. But now Travis is here to reclaim the narrative.
In a new interview with the Los Angeles Times on Sunday, the Blink-182 star addressed the excerpts of his memoir that resurfaced amid Kim and Kourtney’s feud.
“You give people a little information and they think they’ve solved the mystery of ‘this is why they’re fighting,’” he said, directly addressing the “ridiculous” speculation surrounding the cause of Kim and Kourtney’s strained relationship.
“It’s like, ‘Kourtney’s fans are worried about Travis. He’s a womanizer.’ Stop it,” he added. “That’s her sister. She knows we used to talk. Nothing bad was going on.”
The drummer went on to say that he included the quotes about Kim in the book as a way of moving forward.
“I obviously shared all that stuff because I wanted to move past it. It was therapeutic for me,” he said, making it abundantly clear that Kourtney has no resentment toward Kim over the crush.
Well, the case is closed! You can read Travis’s full LA Times interview here.
Stream old episodes of Keeping Up With The Kardashians on Peacock and new ones on Hulu.