In this week’s episode of The Kardashians, we’re getting a closer look at Khloé Kardashian’s health scare and the emotional toll it took on her and her loved ones.
For context, the news that Khloé had a precancerous melanoma tumor removed from her face first made headlines in October last year after fans noticed she was sporting a bandage on her cheek.
Last week’s Season 3 premiere — which was filmed around early September — saw Khloé give real-time insight into the scary journey, saying she had a small bump on her cheek biopsied after realizing it’d been there for "seven or eight months."
The biopsy results revealed that the bump was precancerous, meaning she’d need to have it removed. “I have to get a plastic surgeon to cut the whole thing out,” Khloé tells Kylie Jenner in the first episode.
So this week, we’re getting a look at the aftermath of the removal as Khloé’s longtime BFF Malika Haqq comes around to comfort her.
As we see the two besties sitting on Khloé’s couch, it’s evident that the Good American founder is struggling to talk because of stitches on her face. When Malika asks about the noticeably bigger bandage, Khloé reveals that she had to have a second biopsy after the doctors discovered “a lot more than what they thought had to be removed.”
“I woke up and I had this huge bandage on my face,” Khloé says in her confessional, recalling the procedure. “I couldn’t really move my mouth because I had stitches on the inside of my mouth too. This was way more serious than either I understood or I anticipated it to be.”
Back on the couch, Khloé continues to explain the situation, even showing Malika a few pictures of the stitches taken immediately after the surgery. “By Wednesday, I’ll know if we have to do a second round to make sure if there’s something else we have to do,” she explains. “So we’ll know by then.”
Sitting across from her, Malika suddenly breaks down in tears, prompting Khloé — barely able to move her mouth — to ask why she’s crying.
“Because I don’t like to see you uncomfortable,” she replies.
Now, if you’ve been following Khloé’s ups and downs as of late, you’ll know that her cancer scare pretty much came at the worst possible time.
Just a few weeks prior to this scene, Khloé welcomed a second child with Tristan Thompson via surrogate — a baby boy named Tatum. As I’m sure you’ll know, while the surrogate was pregnant, it was publicly exposed that Tristan secretly had a child with another woman outside of their relationship, marking his third major cheating scandal.
Since the paternity scandal broke in late 2021, the family have expressed major concern for Khloé’s well-being, particularly with the arrival of baby Tatum. However, Khloé has constantly made it clear that she’s “fine,” telling a teary-eyed Malika in this week’s episode, “When you have kids, you can’t not be OK.”
Weighing the events of the past few months, Khloé gets candid in her confessional, admitting that it’s a constant battle to prevent her worries from taking over.
“I’m definitely anxious about everything,” she began. “I think when you’re waiting on results, it's sort of when your mind can just, like, go to different places. You start thinking, OK, well, what if I do have cancer? What if the cancer did spread… You just start thinking these crazy things.”
She continues, “I just had another baby, and … you know, you just spiral into darkness.”
Attempting to compose herself after her emotional moment, Malika emphasizes just how traumatic the past year has been for Khloé by explaining that it’s the lowest she’s since her since her father, Robert Kardashian Sr., died of cancer in 2003.
“If I could tell you some of the hardest times I’ve seen you going through in your life, I think that this one is the closest to when your father passed,” she says. “And that’s what’s the hardest for me, because the hardest time that it was to be friends with you was when your father passed, and I didn’t know what to do. And [now] I feel like I don’t know what to do.”
Khloé follows up by asking if she’s referring to the stress of the newborn or her cancer scare, prompting Malika to allude to all the chaos related to her ex.
“Not because of the baby, but because of what comes with the baby,” she says, seemingly referring to Tristan’s drama. “I don’t think I’ve seen you this low.”
She continues, “There’s a piece of you that is dealing with something so heavy, or things that are so heavy, and you’re just going, ‘I’m fine, I’m fine’ — ‘I’m fine’ is like your thing. But you have to deal with some of the traumatic stuff.”
Sitting beside her on the couch, Khloé continues to keep her guard up, begging Malika not to worry about her. However, in her confessional, she admits that what her bestie is saying is true.
“I can be an asshole and I can block things out and I can just wanna laugh things off,” she says, “but it’s just how I cope with things! I never said it was healthy, I just said it’s how I cope with things.”
The scene finishes with Malika suggesting that Khloé might benefit from “a good cry,” insisting that she needs to try to let herself process all the trauma of the past year.
“And then what does that do after?” Khloé responds flatly, to which Malika says, “You’ll see after you’re finished.”
