Earlier this month, Khloé Kardashian’s rep confirmed that the star is having a second baby with her ex Tristan Thompson.
The new addition is expected via surrogate any day now after being conceived in November. The pair are already parents to 4-year-old daughter True.
It’s safe to say that people were stunned by Khloé’s decision to have another child with Tristan after his years of infidelity — which ultimately led to a paternity scandal just eight months ago.
In fact, just weeks after the embryo was implanted in Khloé and Tristan’s surrogate, Tristan became a dad to a baby boy, Theo, whom he shares with personal trainer Maralee Nichols.
Unbeknownst to Khloé, Tristan had been having sex with Maralee since the end of 2020 until his birthday in March 2021, which is when baby Theo is thought to have been conceived.
Tristan even admitted to leaving the birthday party that Khloé had thrown for him to have sex with Maralee, and then proceeded to hide her subsequent pregnancy for months.
According to Maralee, Tristan was actively encouraging her to have an abortion while simultaneously going forward with his and Khloé’s surrogacy plans.
In court documents that were filed in December, Maralee shared alleged messages from Tristan where he warned her that he’d have “zero involvement” with their baby and seemingly offered her $75,000 to have an abortion.
“Btw if you think having this baby is gonna make you some money. It's completely wrong. You are aware that I'm retiring after this season. So in terms of support it will be whatever is required monthly for someone who's unemployed,” one message read.
Another added: "It's Texas so it will be only a couple hundred dollars, so you better off taking this 75k I'm offering cause you won't get nothing near that with having a kid with a father who's unemployed."
But Tristan denied that these messages were from him, claiming that they were “fabricated” by Maralee.
By the time his and Khloé’s surrogate was impregnated, Tristan was embroiled in a secret legal battle with Maralee after she filed to sue him for child support and pregnancy-related expenses.
He filed a legal declaration in December 2021 that saw him admit to having sex with her nine months earlier. He believed that the document would remain private, and seemingly had no intention of telling Khloé about Maralee or Theo, who was born that same month.
But the lawsuit ended up being leaked to the press, and Khloé and her entire family found out about Tristan’s paternity scandal “with the rest of the world” after the news broke online.
Kim’s raw reaction was caught on camera for the family’s reality show The Kardashians, and she was visibly panicked as she tried to get hold of Khloé.
Although Khloé was already expecting her second baby with Tristan at this point, it is believed that she hadn’t yet told her family the news as Kim alluded to the surrogacy plans over the phone as she angrily said: “If this isn’t the biggest sign for you to not have another baby with this human being…”
When she was pregnant with True, Khloé told their film crew that she was expecting before telling anybody else so that they could capture the moment that her family found out on camera, and it is believed that she had a similar plan this time around.
After news of their second baby broke, sources said that Khloé had not spoken to Tristan “outside of coparenting matters” since December.
Insiders also anticipated the public’s reaction to Khloé’s decision to have another baby with him. One told E! News that Khloé kept it a secret in a bid “to protect her mental health from judgment from the public as a result of Tristan’s actions.”
And while his fourth baby is due any day, Tristan has spent the past few weeks partying across Europe — and was even spotted holding hands with a mystery woman in Greece.
On Sunday, Tristan shared a cryptic Instagram quote to his story, which many interpreted to be a shady indirect at Khloé amid the arrival of their second child.
“1. Nothing is promised to you,” the quote began. “2. No one owes you anything. 3. You have all the responsibility in your life. Understand these three rules as early as possible and realize that independence is the way forward.”
Sharing a screenshot of the post to a Reddit forum, one shocked person asked fellow fans: “A hidden message to Khloe?”
“I can’t stand this mf 😭,” one person replied. “‘No one owes you anything,’ wowww sooooo subtle!”
“Really wild for him to be posting this lol,” another wrote. Someone else asked: “I wonder many more quotes these people will post to justify their selfishness and immorality 🤔”
“‘No one owes you anything’ Tristan to the mother of his kids, and his children,” another user commented. “What a fucking loser.”
“Lmfao like what is this????” one person asked. “Nothing is promised to you? Sir all those babies were promised to you. No one owes you anything? Homie you owe 3 different women child support now. And Responsibility 👀👀👀👀 bruh you had the responsibility to wear a condom and not cheat but here we are AGAIN.”
“Independence being the way forward, bro you’re a whole ass parent now, you gotta make money for those kids and be responsible,” they concluded.
In addition to True and Theo, Tristan is dad to 5-year-old son Prince, whom he shares with Jordan Craig.
Despite denying that he is Theo’s father in December, in January Tristan took to Instagram to confirm that a paternity test had confirmed that Theo is his son.
Although he claimed to “look forward to amicably raising [his] son” with Maralee, her representative said a month later that Tristan had “done nothing” to support his child and had “not made any attempt” to meet his son or provide any financial assistance.
Meanwhile, Khloé previously explained that she may have to go the surrogacy route for future children because she faces a “high risk of miscarrying” due to the low levels of progesterone in her body, which is a hormone that is vital for stabilizing the inner lining of her uterus.
She first started to freeze her eggs in April 2020, and later said that she’d asked Tristan to be a sperm donor after her doctor told her that it would be more beneficial to freeze embryos rather than eggs on their own.
The two weren’t together at the time, but Tristan was happy to oblige.
Khloé and Tristan began dating in 2016, and just days before she gave birth to True in 2018, it was revealed that Tristan had cheated on her throughout her pregnancy.
Khloé stayed with him at the time and was left devastated less than a year later when he was embroiled in another cheating scandal — this time with her sister Kylie Jenner’s then–best friend, Jordyn Woods.
The two broke up at this point and did not publicly rekindle their romance until March 2021, which is when they first began to explore having another baby. They split again in June 2021 amid reports that Tristan had been spotted entering a bedroom with three women at a Los Angeles party.
However, as seen in Hulu’s The Kardashians, they got back together soon afterward and were even talking about marriage as Tristan went to therapy to better himself.
