Throughout this season of The Kardashians, Kourtney Kardashian has won praise for her attitude towards Tristan Thompson in light of the way that he has treated her sister Khloé Kardashian over the years.
While Khloé’s best friend Malika Haqq, mom, Kris Jenner, mom’s boyfriend, Corey Gamble, and even Kim Kardashian have lauded the NBA star and been seen trying to convince Khloé to take him back, Kourtney has remained vocal in her disapproval.
If you needed reminding, Tristan and Khloé first started dating in 2016, and he has made a habit of publicly humiliating her ever since. Just days before she gave birth to their first child, True, in 2018, Khloé found out that he’d cheated on her with a string of women.
After forgiving him, he was exposed for cheating again the following year — this time with her little sister Kylie Jenner’s best friend Jordyn Woods. Fast forward to 2021, and the pair were back together once again, only for Tristan to deliver one of the biggest scandals in Kardashian history.
Not only was it revealed in December of that year that Tristan had secretly fathered a baby with another woman behind Khloé’s back, but Khloé didn’t find out about it — or his related lawsuit — in any capacity until it was leaked to the press, just days before the baby was born.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, Khloé later revealed that while he was hiding the pregnancy and court case from her, Tristan was also pressuring Khloé into going forward with their surrogacy plans for a second child together.
As it happens, their embryo was implanted in the surrogate just days before his paternity scandal was exposed, something that Khloé’s own family has said was his attempt to “trap” her.
In spite of all of this, Tristan and Khloé have forged a friendship, and while she insists that they aren’t back together in a romantic sense, he did move into her home earlier this year while his own place was being renovated.
This gave Kim, Kris, Corey, and Malika hope for a reunion, and throughout recent seasons of the family reality show, there have been several scenes showing Khloé’s inner circle attempt to talk her around to give Tristan yet another chance.
But one person that Tristan can’t count on for his redemption tour is Kourtney, who admitted earlier this season that she still gets so “triggered” by Tristan that she sometimes can’t stand to even be around him.
She also said that she’d been left so upset by the way that he treated Khloé that she’d told her 11-year-old daughter Penelope about it, and Penelope also now harbors ill feelings towards him.
Still, in last week’s episode, Kourtney agreed to sit down for a talk with Tristan for Khloé’s sake — and after fans noticed the way that “master manipulator” Tristan appeared to be telling her exactly what she wanted to hear, they became concerned that he might sway her.
In conversation with Kourtney, Tristan opened up about his therapy journey and how it had taught him a lot about himself and the bad cycles that he’d picked up on in childhood that he was now trying to break
If you didn’t know, Kourtney is incredibly vocal about how important therapy is, and just one week earlier she’d discussed her own bid to unlearn “toxic” traits from her childhood when it comes to raising her children.
The episode ended with a “to be continued” teaser, and viewers waited with bated breath to find out whether or not Tristan had softened Kourtney. But in this week’s episode, they were delighted to see that this wasn’t the case.
In fact, Kourtney arguably went in even harder on Tristan this week, and even suggested that he was a “sociopath” and “narcissist” with “no empathy.” When Tristan said that he hoped to one day have the happy family life that he didn’t have as a kid, Kourtney pointed out that his actions “don’t match” his words.
Going one step further, Kourtney even said that Tristan was “lucky” that Khloé is part of a family that typically forgives men for their toxic behavior — something that has been called out multiple times when it comes to the KarJenners.
She discussed the fact that her family has a habit of placing their exes on a pedestal and that they prioritize keeping “everyone happy” over “setting a boundary or having someone’s back.”
“In our family, everyone can tend to normalize these behaviors of some of the men in our lives, and I don’t want to show my daughter that that’s OK,” Kourtney added in a confessional. “I think having forgiveness and giving grace is right, but also having really clear boundaries, I think is really important.”
Referencing Tristan in particular, she said: “I’m not here to hold a grudge. I think that was the point in having the conversation. I do believe that people can grow. It was interesting to me the work that he’s doing and the path that he’s on, because when your words don’t match your actions, it’s concerning. Talk is cheap.”
And the star has been praised for once again being “the voice of reason” in the family, with one person writing on a Reddit forum: “i am so sick of this family constantly putting the need to fix their broken ass family unit by having no boundaries with their exes so what Kourtney said was refreshing.”
“Kourt gave us everything🙏🏽 the voice of reason,” somebody else agreed. One more added: “Kourtney did not give in. She said what she had to say ,PERIOD ! 💯”
Another wrote: “I'm so proud of Kourtney for doing all the work she has, it really shows when she's surrounded by people who clearly haven’t.”
While somebody else tweeted: “Kourtney is right I’m glad she broke the mold and is like no fuck you respectfully you can tell she actually cares about her sisters happiness.”
