Years after his first cheating scandal hit, Tristan Thompson has decided to come clean and face up to his mistakes. On this week’s episode of The Kardashians, the 32-year-old NBA star shares that he’s ready to have some “long overdue” conversations with several members of his ex, Khloé Kardashian’s, family surrounding his multiple cheating scandals.
Noting that he’s already spoken to momager Kris Jenner, Khloé’s sister, Kim Kardashian, and Khloé’s brother, Rob Kardashian, Tristan says he wants to speak with some of the other members of her family who might not have previously been ready to talk to him.
And while Khloé mentions Kendall Jenner’s hesitance, Tristan does get the chance to meet with Kylie Jenner and Kourtney Kardashian.
Kylie’s up first, with the 26-year-old makeup mogul admitting to being “a little nervous” to talk to Tristan.
Tristan acknowledges that Kylie might have been the family member “most affected” by his actions, after the 2019 scandal in which he kissed her live-in best friend, Jordyn Woods, at a party.
Noting that Jordyn’s exit from Kylie’s life was like “losing a sister,” Tristan adds, “The fact that I came with my poor decisions and being a f**king idiot and just being young and stupid, I just want to say I’m sorry again for that. Life is so short and it sucks because even though we made our mistakes, sometimes it’s hard to come back from situations like that.”
Kylie took the apology well, saying, “I appreciate that. I think I was so co-dependent that I could have never imagined my life without her. We would have probably still been living together. And I think she needed to grow without me. I needed to grow without her. But Jordyn and I are cool. We still talk and catch up.”
Prior to the chat, Khloé expresses that she has also forgiven Jordyn for her part in the situation, saying, “Jordyn and I are good.”
Tristan also asks Kylie to apologize to Jordyn on his behalf. But Kylie doesn’t let the father of four off the hook that easily. She has no problem calling him out.
“You do some dumb-a** s**t,” Kylie, who previously called Tristan’s action’s “unforgivable,” tells him. “I think you have such a good heart and good energy and to know you is to love you, your spirit and everything, so it is confusing. Because some of the s**t you do is really f**king crazy.”
Tristan blames being “selfish” and “not understanding the value of good people,” saying that his ultimate goal is to “gain back the respect of my family.”
He says that he doesn’t want members of the family to be uncomfortable around him and even talks about his fears concerning his and Khloé’s 5-year-old daughter, True Thompson.
“That’s my motivation more than anything. I never want my daughter to go to school and talk so great about me and then some little kid comes and is like, ‘Well, your dad is this, this, this,’ and she’ll be embarrassed and that will break my heart,” he shares, moving Kylie.
But that’s just the beginning of Tristan’s apology tour. He then has to face off against Kourtney Kardashian, who admits that she’s never connected with her sister’s ex and that she “just can’t fake it” when it comes to her feelings. Coming equipped with a pen and notebook, Kourtney asks Tristan for an explanation for his actions.
“The next day after you do the deed, do you feel anything?” she asks him.
“For me personally, when I cheat, I feel disgusted the next day with guilt,” Tristan shares.
And Kourtney wants to know why he would choose to do it again.
“I was just cheating for an action, just cheating for a feeling, but also it really came down to not knowing how to love, because that’s the way I grew up,” Tristan shares. “What I saw from my dad, how he would treat my mom, as a kid when you see that, the trauma you have, because you can’t protect your mom because you’re so young and ’cause your mom tells you it’s going to be OK, you basically numb your emotions of being scared or feeling sad. It’s my form of a defense mechanism.”
Tristan, who says he’s been in therapy for two years, notes that he never had an example of a faithful relationship, has never seen a man treat a woman well, and has never seen a good husband. He says that his late mother, Andrea Thompson, always acted like everything was fine, even amid his father’s alleged affairs, so he never realized how much of an impact the cheating could have.
Kourtney then asks Tristan if he thinks that Khloé should put herself first and not choose him again.
“I don’t think you deserve Khloé or the actions that you’ve done have been something that she’s deserved,” Kourtney tells him before the episode cuts out.
Tristan and Khloé first got together in 2016. Days before they welcomed their daughter, True, in 2018, the L.A. Lakers star was caught cheating on his then-pregnant girlfriend. The couple privately reconciled while raising their newborn daughter. Then, in 2019, Tristan was once again caught being unfaithful with Jordyn. After some time apart, Khloé rekindled the romance with the athlete, only for a paternity scandal to come to light in December 2021. It was revealed that Tristan had fathered a child with Maralee Nichols while he was secretly engaged to Khloé. And days before the news of the paternity lawsuit broke, Tristan encouraged Khloé to do an embryo transfer in order to have a second child with him via surrogate. Khloé and Tristan’s son, Tatum Thompson, was born in July 2022.
In this week’s episode, Khloé touches on the paternity scandal, saying, “It’s done. My son is here. Your other son is here and some of [my family’s] emotions have settled down, not forgotten, not forgiven, not any of that, but settled down.”
New episodes of The Kardashians stream Thursdays on Hulu.
In other news – Kim Kardashian suffers from memory blanks
Kim Kardashian is burning the candle at both ends. On this week’s episode of The Kardashians, Kim takes a trip to New York City where she has to fit in a slew of scheduled events that leave her beyond exhausted.
She does rehearsals for her role in the Ryan Murphy show, American Horror Story, a Time magazine cover shoot, a fitting for her Met Gala dress, a SKIMS business meeting, a fashion gala for Olivier Rousteing, an appearance on the Today show, and she even meets her sister, Kourtney Kardashian, and her husband, Travis Barker, for the opening show of the Blink-182 tour in Brooklyn. Read More
