Let's proceed with caution before we paint Khloé Kardashian as the victim in this cheating scandal
That Khloé Kardashian has given birth to a healthy baby girl and is experiencing motherhood for the first time is good news. There are but a few moments that are as exalting as laying your eyes on your child for the first time. In Khloé's case, this moment must have been even more special as she struggled to get pregnant with ex-husband, Lamar Odom when they were married between 2009 and 2016.
Khloé's first pregnancy with NBA star Tristan Thompson seemed something of a fairy tale. To the world, it looked like the 33-year-old finally got her chance at experiencing a stable, loving relationship. Khloé and Tristan's relationship was, by every stretch of the word, domestic.
The couple moved in together in Ohio, Cleveland less than one year of dating each other. At his house, she cooked for him; organized cabinets in his kitchen and worked out in his garage. On various episodes of 'Keeping up with the Kardashians,' the Kar-Jenner tribe commented on how happy they were for Khloé. That is, until a very damaging video of him kissing a brunette in New York City's PH-D Lounge on April 7th, landed in the hands of Daily Mail.
The Daily Mail story, which appeared on April 10th, changed the very narrative Khloé had crafted of her pregnancy and relationship with Tristan. Up until then, the 'Strong Looks Better Naked' author's version stood in stark contrast to the two videos that captured incidents of his infidelity- one on April 7th and another in October 2017. Not to be outdone by Daily Mail, TMZ released footage of him with two women at a party in Washington D.C last year. In the video, the NBA player was seen playfully kissing one while the other woman grabbed his crotch.
What followed was a barrage of news stories that painted Khloé as a hapless victim. That she was nine months pregnant and about to give birth to her baby didn't help either. Sources close to the family later told press outlets that Tristan was in the delivery room when Khloé went into labour on April 12th.
This piece of information propelled other stories. A Hollywood Life article claimed she would forgive his indiscretions because she believed in raising a family. A similar story appeared on People, with a source saying, "She’s a hopeless romantic and she’ll try to make this work. She tried forever to make it work with Lamar [Odom]. She’s having a child with Tristan, and she’s going to try to rebuild this."
The subtext in these news articles is clear: Khloé will be relentless in realizing her dream of having a family. To be sure, that is indeed her choice. She isn't a victim of her circumstance; rather an active agent who's made a conscious choice. Whether it's the right one is up for debate. Should she have been cheated on when she was pregnant? Perhaps not. However, it seems to work for her, Tristan and their daughter, True.
Nonetheless, news outlets seem to imply that the reality star has somewhat diminished her power by choosing to stay with the man who cheated on her. Her decision to forgive him has been reported as a desperate woman's attempt at putting together pieces of a fractured relationship. Try, how much ever we may, we still won't be able to guess the reason why Khloé is still with Tristan, but her choice to do so doesn't make her a victim; it makes her a partner who believes in offering forgiveness and another chance.
Furthermore, it's hard to believe that she didn't know of Tristan's indiscretions much before they appeared on news outlets. After all, one episode in the recent season of 'Keeping up with the Kardashians' focused on her feud with TMZ, which gave her one week to disprove news of her pregnancy. She chose to remain silent and the story was published on September 25th. Perhaps a similar deadline was offered to her this time as well, and it's interesting that she let her silence ring loud once again. She will probably find voice on her reality show.
After all, the Kardashians and their pregnancies have been talking points in the recent season of the E! TV series. The latter half of season 14 of 'Keeping up with the Kardashians,' which included Khloé's pregnancy announcement and the gender reveal of her baby roped in an average of 1.10 million viewers per episode, an increase in ratings for the show that has been floundering for a while.
Khloé will no doubt speak about the Daily Mail and TMZ videos that surfaced just before she went into labour. However, we won't be surprised if this is done while she's nursing her newborn or chomping on a salad. The Kardashians have used their reality show as a platform to offer their version of the story, and those episodes have unsurprisingly got them the ratings.
Perhaps a few episodes of the upcoming season of the reality show will be dedicated to her relationship with Tristan, and in those installments, Khloé will have the space to craft another narrative: of being the woman who was cheated on, and yet somehow emerged from it stronger. After all, this seems to be a recurring theme in her life and a plot line that seems, in some ways, hackneyed.