In last night’s episode of The Kardashians, Kim and Khloé sat down with Scott Disick to discuss all the criticism that Season 2 got.
For those who aren’t in the loop, the KarJenner sisters faced a ton of backlash last year after viewers of their Hulu reality show noticed its significant decrease in drama, and subsequent increase in business plugs.
For the most part, the sisters failed to discuss or even acknowledge a ton of their real-life personal issues, such as Kim’s ex-husband Kanye West’s tumultuous feud with her then-new boyfriend, Pete Davidson. As a result, The Kardashians was branded a “chore” to watch by several viewers who wound up avoiding the show altogether.
However, one real-life storyline that was addressed in detail was Khloé’s now-ex-boyfriend Tristan Thompson’s shocking paternity scandal.
Tristan secretly fathered a child with another woman, Maralee Nichols, while he and Khloé were quietly engaged and preparing to welcome their second baby via surrogate. Khloé was caught off guard by the news, finding out with “the rest of the world” when court documents filed against Tristan by Maralee surfaced online.
Season 2 kicked off with a special episode dedicated to the aftermath of the scandal, and Khloé’s heartbreak was palpable throughout.
At the time, several viewers questioned why Khloé was the only one of her sisters sharing the most intimate details of her life, suggesting that Kim was being afforded “the privilege of privacy.”
“Watch Khloé have to share all this while Kim gets to sweep her entire relationship with Pete under the rug,” one Reddit user wrote when the trailer for Khloé’s special episode first dropped.
“Kim barely shared anything difficult or negative about her situation with Kanye,” said another. “She's the one that shares the LEAST and hides behind the ‘privacy’ excuse only when it's convenient to her.”
“I’ll actually be mad if Khloé has to expose everything and Kim gets the privilege of privacy,” someone else wrote.
And as Season 2 unfolded, it was clear that this was in fact the case; Kim largely avoided addressing any of her personal hardships in detail, while Khloé displayed the worst of her and Tristan’s drama.
As a result, many Kardashians viewers were left “bored” and disappointed by the lack of juicy content in Season 2 — especially given that the sisters’ former E! reality show, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, was pretty much centered around the most raw and intimate moments of their lives.
However, in last night’s episode of The Kardashians, which was filmed back in September, Kim seemed convinced that viewers had directed their frustration toward Khloé for apparently giving nothing.
Quoting a critical article published by Variety, Kim says to Khloé and Scott Disick: “‘This season’s first episode was set closer to the present as Khloé reveals to the camera that she is to have a baby via surrogate, a state of affairs she had been unwilling to discuss on camera throughout the process.”
In a confessional, Kim explains, “There was an article about Season 2 of our show that said that Khloé didn’t give enough with her Tristan situation. ... First of all, we filmed everything. She shared everything.”
Understandably getting quite defensive, Khloé tells Kim, “With my surrogacy, I was so fucking vulnerable. ... I let people into what I was struggling with.” Kim replies, “But what they were saying is that you did it after the fact, when the baby was about to be born, instead of saying, ‘Hey, we’re on this journey.’”
Khloé then responds, “I wasn’t admitting it to myself what was happening, and I made that very clear,” before adding in a confessional, “People are saying that I don’t share enough. I mean, I potentially have cancer on my face, and I’m talking about that.”
Kim goes on to briefly address the criticism she faced for not sharing enough. Responding to the article’s description of Kanye West as a “non-presence” in the show, Kim says, “OK, what do you want me to do? If I don’t talk to him, what am I gonna do, send a camera? It’s not that I’m unwilling, it’s that my ex didn’t wanna be on a reality show!”
“You can’t film with someone that’s not a cast member,” she adds in a confessional. “I talk about him. I will definitely talk about my coparenting struggles but from my point of view.”
And going on to address the criticism over the lack of Pete content, Kim notes, “It’s hard when you start dating someone and you live your life on a reality show, so Pete and I had that conversation right away. … But then the fans were like, ‘Pete’s not on the show.’ And I was like, ‘We said that from the start. It’s not what he does.’”
“Then I opened up, then I had him on the show. ... I talked about every last thing,” she claims.
Kim ultimately maintains that she and Khloé are the only KarJenners who provide “real content” for The Kardashians, claiming that they share “every last detail” of their lives. “Khloé and I, we give real content. We’re sharing every last detail of our lives,” she says.
Well, as soon as last night’s episode aired, Kim’s comments were met with a pretty negative response from viewers online.
“Pretty confident that most of the [fans] have agreed that Khloé’s back is broken from carrying the show these past few years. No one is saying that she isn’t showing anything?” one Reddit user wrote.
Pointing toward the article that Kim read in the show, the Reddit user continued, “You choose ONE part from the article, just mentioning Khloé withholding from Tristan drama (not true), or Kim not talking about Kanye…while completely overlooking everything else. The article talks about how you purposely choose to talk about stuff, or not, for your own good, and it’s no longer reality.”
“The fact that they end that segment by patting themselves on the shoulder like ‘We — Khloé and I (Kim) — were the one that always carried the show’... THE AUDACITY, first to even dare to say that at all, but even worse: to say that in front of Scott!” someone else wrote.
“That dude and Kourtney carried the show for years and years while Kim just showed us sanitized moments of how much she is ‘girl boss,’” they continued, before adding, “Kim has no self awareness, and the segment just shows how she manipulates the information to have Khloé on her side.”
