This week’s episode of The Kardashians was a lot, to say the least, with Tristan Thompson embarking on an apology tour in a bid to win over Khloé Kardashian’s family after his years of betrayal.
As you are probably aware, Tristan has repeatedly publicly humiliated Khloé ever since they started dating in 2016 — with the reality star first finding out that he had cheated on her just days before she gave birth to their first child in 2018.
After forgiving him for that, Tristan cheated again and destroyed Khloé’s sister Kylie Jenner’s friendship with Jordyn Woods when he hooked up with her at a house party.
Khloé forgave him again, but in 2021, she was left devastated when she learned “with the rest of the world” that Tristan had secretly fathered a son with another woman and had been keeping it from her for months.
Not only did Tristan keep personal trainer Maralee Nichols’s pregnancy hidden from Khloé, he was also secretly battling a related court case over his paternity and child support issues while she was none the wiser.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, Khloé later revealed that Tristan had simultaneously been convincing her to go ahead with surrogacy plans for their second child, and their embryo was implanted in the surrogate just days before his paternity scandal was exposed.
At the time, Khloé’s family admitted that it seemed as though Tristan was racing against the clock to “trap” Khloé before he was found out.
Khloé and Tristan’s son was born in July of last year — just months after his son with Maralee was born, who she has claimed he has yet to meet.
Khloé previously said that she was so heartbroken by the paternity scandal that she didn’t speak to Tristan for six months, but she has had a massive change of heart since.
In fact, fans of her family reality show have been left unimpressed by how much Tristan has been featured in the most recent season — pointing out that many episodes feel like an attempt at a “redemption arc” for the disgraced NBA star.
In addition to Tristan literally moving in with Khloé while his home was being renovated, several members of her inner circle have been seen encouraging her to give him yet another chance.
Her mom, Kris Jenner, shared her fears that Khloé would “regret” not sticking with Tristan, her best friend Malika Haqq said that the star should try to “save” her family, her sister Kim Kardashian heaped praise on Tristan for how much time he spends with her own sons, and Kris’s partner, Corey Gamble, even gushed over him being “daddy of the year.”
Amid all of this, Khloé’s sister Kourtney Kardashian has been the only one to represent how fans feel about Tristan, with the star admitting that she sometimes gets so “triggered” she can’t even bear to be around him.
This week, it was revealed that Kylie and Kendall Jenner also still harbor ill feelings toward Tristan, and he attempted to clear the air in some one-to-one conversations.
Sitting down with Kylie, Tristan apologized for the impact that his actions had on her friendship with Jordyn. Although he was in his late 20s in 2019 when the controversial hook-up occurred — and was actually older than Kylie and Jordyn are now — he insisted that it was purely a result of him being “young and stupid.”
He also appeared to try and relate to the mom-of-two through their children and being a parent, with Kylie being reduced to tears as he spoke earnestly about his fears of being an embarrassment to his daughter.
And when it came to his heart-to-heart with Kourtney, Tristan opened up extensively about what he’d learned about himself in therapy. He claimed that through therapy he “realized” that his “childhood upbringing” is a factor in why he mistreats women.
Tristan said that numbing his emotions is a “defense mechanism” and that everything he’d done to Khloé was because he wasn’t ever taught “how to love.”
In case you didn’t know, Kourtney is hugely vocal about how important she thinks that therapy is, and just last week, she opened up about the fact that going to therapy helped her unlearn “toxic” traits she’d picked up in her childhood when it comes to raising her children.
And this coincidence wasn’t lost on viewers at home, with Tristan being branded a “master manipulator” as fans accused him of adapting his speeches to fit what he knew each sister “wanted to hear.”
Writing on a Reddit forum, one person also referenced the way that Tristan stepped up to support Kim’s sons amid her divorce from their dad, Kanye West, as they wrote: “So basically Tristan told each sister what they wanted to hear. Kylie with Jordyn, Kim with her kids, and Kourtney with therapy.”
“And all are too dumb to see what he’s doing,” they went on. “All of them will forgive him. My last hope for this family is Kendall never speaking to him and keeping that energy of not wanting to be near him.”
“Ooo that’s such a good point fr this man is a master manipulator,” someone else replied. “Also him saying he’s young and dumb to Kylie when he was older then Kylie is now is definitely….interesting.”
“Omg I didn’t even notice that. He fooled me ? I know he isn’t sincere with anything he says but wow I didn’t notice how calculated his talks with each sister was,” another responded.
While one more user said that they felt as though there was too much emphasis on Tristan’s cheating, and not enough on the deceit that followed, especially in the most recent instance. They wrote: “Im sick of the narrative that Tristan’s biggest problem is cheating, at this point it’s not. Like Kylie said, encouraging Khloe to have a baby via surrogate while he was waiting for another baby is unforgivable.”
“He can justify the cheating with some bs sap story but knowing he is capable of that level of manipulation should prevent anyone from trusting him,” they added.
“Tristan is soo insincere it’s so obvious,” somebody else agreed. “Why are they giving this man screen time.”
