By now, we are all pretty familiar with Khloé Kardashian and Tristan Thompson’s less-than-enviable love story, with their entire on-again, off-again relationship dogged with cheating rumors.
There was the time when Khloé found out that Tristan had cheated on her just days before she gave birth to their daughter, True, in 2018; and who can forget when he hooked up with her sister Kylie Jenner’s best friend, Jordyn Woods, at a house party in 2019?
Then there was the mess of 2021, when Khloé had taken Tristan back after his previous indiscretions — and secretly accepted his proposal — only for more drama to unfold.
In December of that year, it was revealed that Tristan had fathered a child behind Khloé’s back following an affair with personal trainer Maralee Nichols. Khloé ended up learning about the entire thing “with the rest of the world” when court documents leaked to the press.
It transpired that, for several months, Tristan had been embroiled in a secret legal battle with Maralee over the paternity of the little boy and child support payments. Maralee even alleged that Tristan had offered her money to have an abortion — claims that he later denied.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, it was revealed last year that Tristan had also been encouraging Khloé to go ahead with surrogacy plans for their second child together — all while he was secretly dealing with Maralee’s pregnancy, unbeknownst to her.
The embryo ended up being implanted in the surrogate just days before Khloé found out about his affair and subsequent son, with Tristan being accused of convincing Khloé to have a second child with him in a bid to “trap” her.
Their son, Tatum, was born in July of last year, and while Khloé has insisted to fans that she has not reconnected with Tristan on a romantic level, they have developed a close friendship, and he even lived with her while his house was being renovated earlier this year.
As a result, Tristan has featured heavily in recent seasons of Khloé’s family reality show, The Kardashians, and viewers have been left disgusted as multiple people in Khloé’s inner circle have suggested to her that she should give Tristan yet another chance.
While this isn’t entirely new for the show, the discourse reached new levels following this week’s episode after Khloé’s mom, Kris Jenner, and best friend, Malika Haqq, shared their seriously wild takes on the whole situation.
At the start of the episode, Kris admits that she is worried that Khloé might “regret” not giving Tristan another chance, and that she will be left with a “void” in her home without his presence.
“I just want Khloé to be really careful when she makes these decisions and she has to let somebody go,” Kris says, with an earlier episode showing just how close Tristan and Kris have become.
Later, Tristan is shown holding Tatum at True’s birthday party, and Kris’s boyfriend, Corey Gamble, is full of genuine praise as he exclaims, “Daddy of the year! Best Father Award.”
Corey goes on to tell Tristan that Khloé will be left “crying” when Tristan moves back into his own house.
In a confessional, a producer tells Khloé, “Your mom and Corey are hopeful for a future for you two,” but she doubles down on her decision not to give him another chance.
“I think it’s probably really confusing to people, because Tristan and I get along so well, other people want more,” Khloé explains. “I know where I’m comfortable at, and I’m comfortable with where it’s at right now, which is a modern family.”
Khloé later shares her frustration with how forgiving Kris has been with Tristan over lunch with Malika, where she admits, “Being a mom, if someone did what Tristan did to my daughter, I would probably castrate them — and smile doing it.”
Khloé goes on to say that in an “ideal world,” she would be married to Tristan and raising their kids together — however, she is no longer “attracted” to him after his repeated betrayals. She goes on to specify that their own surrogate being pregnant amid his paternity scandal was the “most wild thing.”
“I want to feel proud when I go into a room and I’m with my man and I don’t think everyone’s laughing at me for being a weak bitch for staying with someone,” she adds.
However, Malika doesn’t give the expected response, as she instead tells Khloé that she might actually want to give Tristan another chance so that she can “save” her family.
“You are the furthest from a weak woman,” she begins. “It takes a very strong woman to forgive people, it takes a very strong woman to be hurt multiple times by the same person and still smile in their face. There’s nothing weak about that, I don’t care what anybody says.”
“Maybe think about it this way,” Malika goes on. “Maybe you might want to try and save your family. Maybe you might want to give this a shot despite…”
“But I have tried to save my family, a couple of times,” Khloé interjects to point out. “I just want my life a little bit.”
“So it’s not a never?” Malika pushes, to which Khloe replies, “Well, I don’t know. I don’t know what it is; it’s definitely not now.”
And viewers at home have been left horrified by Malika's, Kris's, and Corey’s behavior in the episode.
“Why is no one listening to Khloe?” one fan asked on a Reddit forum. “Can she just catch a break? She should not [...] be blamed for the family unit breaking, that is all Tristan’s fault.”
“Why are Kris and Cory so obsessed with Khloé getting back with Tristan? So toxic,” another wrote.
“Malika is a trash friend,” someone else added. “don’t encourage Khloe to keep getting back with someone that cheated on her and humiliated her and say she’s ‘so strong for forgiving him and trying to make it work.’ What kind or toxic advice is that?? Who believes that???? You can forgive same and also say - I will not tolerate this disrespect and this relationship is over.”
“Malika has been giving shit advice from day one,” one more claimed. “She always pushes Khloé to get back with Tristan and defends him everytime he fucks up. That's why I really don't like her. I used to like her friendship with Khloe, because they've been friends for so long and it's such a beautiful thing to have a ride or die. But the way She's always team Tristan over her own best friend is so frustrating and fucked up.”
Others have pointed out the issue in Corey’s comment about Tristan at True’s birthday party, considering that Tristan has reportedly never met his son with Maralee.
Tristan also has a son called Prince, whose mom recently claimed in legal filings that Tristan owes her over $220,000 in child support.
One Reddit user wrote, “Corey needs to shut up. Tristan is not dad of the year. 😅🤣,” to which someone else replied, “You can’t be the best father when you abandoned half your kids.”
“!!!!!!!!! and not even just that- you can't be the best father when you're publicly humiliating the mother of your children!!” another user agreed.
