Last week, Kim Kardashian faced heavy backlash for publicly praising Khloé Kardashian’s ex-partner Tristan Thompson.
Over the years that Khloé and Tristan dated on and off, he was exposed for cheating on her numerous times. Just days before she gave birth to their first daughter, True, in 2018, the athlete was spotted entering a hotel with a mystery woman in New York. Less than a year later, he kissed Khloé’s then-close friend Jordyn Woods at a house party.
Khloé repeatedly ended and rekindled things with Tristan, and the pair even quietly got engaged and decided to have a second child in 2021. However, while they were preparing to welcome their baby via surrogate, news broke that the NBA player had secretly fathered a child with personal trainer Maralee Nichols. He did not tell Khloé about this until legal documents filed against him by Maralee surfaced online.
Khloé later revealed that Tristan’s “despicable” actions took a toll on both her mental and physical health.
“Everything is a lie, everything is manipulation. It’s deceit... Did Tristan have every opportunity to tell me? Yes. Was Tristan going to tell me if there wasn’t a baby involved? Absolutely not, and that shows a lot about his character. The entire thing is despicable,” she said on Hulu’s The Kardashians.
“I’m so anxious, I’ve been really dehydrated, I fainted the other day,” she later told her sister Kendall Jenner. “I’m fine, but sometimes I feel like literally I can’t breathe and I’m gasping for air.”
Khloé ultimately decided to forgive Tristan and remain amicable with him for the sake of their two kids.
And certain members of Khloé’s family have also chosen to stay friendly with Tristan — namely Kim.
In last week’s episode of The Kardashians, Kim described Tristan as “such a good friend” as she defended her decision to remain close with him.
“It’s so crazy because he’s such a good friend and he’s such a good dad, but he just couldn’t get it together in that area of, like, being a faithful boyfriend,” she said. “You wanna obviously hate him for that. Yeah, of course his actions and who he was, like, so fucked up — I can’t deny that.”
“We’ve had our talks about it, and we’ve had our fights about it, and we’ve had our arguments about it,” she continued. “But he’s also shown so many decent things and just has been a really good person and friend.”
“When he saw me struggling with my kids, he stepped up. He started showing up to the games, he picks Saint up, takes him to dinner, and will always come to my defense — especially if it’s stuff with me and my ex,” she said, referring to her ex-husband Kanye West, with whom she shares four kids. “And I just never forgot that. So it’s like, I’ll never really throw someone away and act like I don’t feel like they can grow and evolve.”
Kim’s comments were met with heavy criticism from viewers at home, one of whom tweeted, "the fact kim is besties with tristan is disgusting. he’s an employee of that family [...] not a good father. good fathers don’t cheat on the mothers of their children the way tristan has."
But sadly, this week’s installment of The Kardashians saw another one of Khloé’s family members heaping praise onto Tristan: her mom, Kris Jenner.
In the episode, Kris — who has publicly declared her love for Tristan before — was joined by the NBA player while she was tidying up in the kitchen. At the time of filming, Tristan was temporarily living with Khloé because the roof of his house had caved in due to extreme flooding.
When he sees Kris wiping the kitchen countertops, Tristan immediately takes over, telling her that he doesn’t want her getting her “beautiful two-piece dirty.” Kris looks thrilled, asking him, “What don’t you do?” before instructing the 6’9” athlete to rearrange some of the tableware in the tallest cupboards.
Kris goes on to gush about how “handy” Tristan is, noting that he helps out in the house “wherever he’s needed.” She says, “Khloé and Tristan definitely have worked out this rhythm. Wherever he’s needed, he’s running the kids around, he’s doing the errands — and it doesn’t hurt that he’s really tall.”
The pair then converse about his career, revealing that Kris pulled a few strings to get Tristan an exciting analyst role on ESPN’s NBA Today.
“I was able to reach out to ABC Disney and really express how talented I thought Tristan was, and how they would really benefit from him being a part of the ESPN team,” she says in a confessional, before excitedly recalling how quickly they took Tristan on board.
“This is a dream. I mean, the fact that we could have that call on Friday and they said, ‘Can you start Monday?’ That never happens to anyone,” she tells him.
He replies, “Thank you. You made it happen. You made a couple calls. You’re like, ‘My boy wants to do ESPN, let’s make it happen!’”
Later on, Kris and Tristan end up talking about how he’s finding it living with Khloé and coparenting full-time.
Tristan makes it clear that he’s enjoying living with Khloé — whom he describes as the “best workout partner” he’s ever had — before adding that he’s loving helping out with the kids. “I’m loving the carpool in the morning, going to school,” he says, with Kris noting, “Kids remember all of that stuff.”
Kris seems struck by Tristan’s comments, and later admits in a confessional that she’s worried Khloé will feel a “void” in her home once he eventually moves back out.
