This week, for reasons that perhaps only she herself fully understands, Khloe Kardashian paid tribute to Tristan Thompson.
On the surface, it was a sweet family moment of Tristan and his kids. Well, some of his kids.
Famously, Tristan has multiple kids with multiple mothers. And 15-month-old Theo was not part of the family photo.
Immediately after Khloe’s pic(kme) post, Maralee Nichols paid tribute to her precious baby.
On Monday, as we previously reported, Khloe posted a shoutout to Tristan Thompson.
Her cheating ex turned 32 years old. So she celebrated his birthday with a tribute post.
Khloe included their 7-month-old son (whose name we do not yet know) and their almost-5-year-old daughter, True. And they were not alone.
Khloe made sure to include Tristan’s eldest child, 6-year-old Prince Oliver.
He is not Khloe’s child, but Tristan’s child with his ex, Jordan Craig.
And Khloe has spent years trying to include Prince in various family activities.
Some speculated that this was out of guilt for “stealing” Tristan away (not quite how that works).
Others wondered if it was to push Tristan to form family bonds as a preface for her own kids with him.
Either way, Tristan has four children (that we know of), but only three were in Khloe’s celebratory picture. What gives?
We don’t know the behind-the-scenes politics at play here.
Maybe Maralee and Theo, who is now 15 months old, did not feel up to traveling to meet up for Tristan’s birthday.
It’s also possible that Maralee did not receive an invitation.
Or maybe they just didn’t want to make the trip. Maybe Marelee, specifically, didn’t want to.
Tristan did a whole court battle to try to fight paternity, only to eventually confess that he was the one who impregnated Maralee.
Oh, and he did that while cheating on Khloe, lest we forget.
It wasn’t long after Khloe’s big birthday tribute to Tristan and some of his kids that Maralee took to her Instagram Story with this photo.
We see her lying back in bed, smiling peacefully with her eyes closed.
Little Theo is resting on her chest, almost certainly sleeping. The photo is beyond adorable.
Notably, Tristan has not actually addressed Theo — even his existence, let alone posting photos of him — since he first confessed to fathering him.
And it did read like a confession. Because not only did he fight paternity in court, but the admission also meant that he had not only cheated on Khloe — but knew that Maralee’s child was his when he and Khloe went ahead with having Baby #2 via surrogate.
And yet, after all of this, Khloe is still devotedly singing the praises of the man who could not respect their relationship, no matter how many chances she gave him.
Khloe praised Tristan as being the “best father.” Interesting interpretation.
“Your love, attention, silly dances, hugs, carpool rides, bed time rituals, the way u show up for them,” Khloe listed. “All of the above means more than you’ll ever know to your family of littles.”
She continued: “My birthday wish for u is that u continue to crave change, healing, and transformation. Be strong, be kind, be patient, be free. Continue to Make your soul and your mommy proud.”