Khloé Kardashian on Which Cheating Scandal Hurt Most, Awkward Lamar Odom Sit-Down and More

Often considered the most down-to-earth of the family, Khloé can arguably also be said to have had possibly the worst luck when it comes to her relationships -- though there have been plenty of very public struggles for others.

She even got ahead of that narrative herself when asked which of her sisters makes the worst decisions when it comes to guys. "Can I say myself?" she replied. "I would say me."

With two exes embroiling her in two massive cheating scandals that made national tabloid news, Khloé has certainly had to wear hear heartache on her sleeve and in the public eye since the age of 22, when Keeping Up with the Kardashians first hit the airwaves as a fill-in show.

"I think the quote was, 'Don't get too comfortable here, you're just filler,'" Khloé recalled of that first six-episode season. As she remembers it, Lindsay Lohan had a reality show that was supposed to come out, but when she pulled the plug at the last minute, the Kardashians were tapped as filler content.

As such, Khloé said they had no long-term thinking in their minds when filming those first six. "we were just being morons, like who we are, just not overthinking it and it snowballed into something really great," she said.

"But I didn't think everything through, if you will, so I'm just being me," she continued. "But I also have always tried to keep that for me; I don't want to overthink."

She joked at the top of the show, that sister Kim Kardashian told her to think before she answers any questions, and she told her sister, "I do not think before I speak," admitting with a laugh, "And that's my problem."

At the same time, the Good American founder says that as the years have gone by, she's "made a conscious effort not to edit" out even the harder things in her life, sharing that she thinks of it as an "obligation" to be truthful on the family's show (now airing on Hulu as The Kardashians).

"I feel like if something's in the press and it's true and it's happening, it's sort of my obligation to have that on TV because that's what, in fact, is happening," she explained. "It's not fair for me to say, you know, I don't want that on the show because it's in the press, 'cause it hurts me or whatever."

She also thinks of it another way. "I feel like, I can't be the only one going through certain things," she argued. "If it's something that they can relate to at all, I really hope that I make someone feel more seen and safe and that they're not alone on this island that feels so incredibly isolating."

That feeling of isolation is something Khloé connects to on a personal level, as she said that's where she was -- metaphorically and literally -- shortly after the first Tristan Thompson cheating scandal, which broke less than 48 hours before she gave birth to their first child, True.

In fact, she admitted that despite being open to sharing her life on camera, she's not entirely sure she would have shared quite so much of this particular event had it not played out as cameras were already rolling.

"If I remember correctly, I think [Kim] was about to sit down for Keeping Up interviews and it happened while she was in the interview chair," Khloé said. "Don't know if as much would have been shown if that's not how it was unfolding in real time. We just happen to be filming all the f--king time so it did happen that way."

And then she made the decision to let the cameras into her birthing experience, and let Tristan in even after just finding out he'd cheated on her while she was pregnant -- opening up a can of vitriol from the public.

As she's explained in the past, it was a decision she was making for her daughter and for the future. "I felt like I can't make a permanent decision off of temporary emotions," she told Alex. "I'm not gonna hate Tristan forever, but I will never get that birth experience back."

She said that at some point, True will be old enough to know everything that happened, and, "I don't think [it needs to be], I didn't have your dad in there because I was so angry."

But after it was all done and she'd made the decisions she'd made, Khloé said that she was alone in Cleveland, where she'd stayed for a bit after True's birth. "I was like in this isolated bubble of being alone with my child with these hormones,' she shared. "I would not watch TV. It was a huge media story. I couldn't even leave the house. We were surrounded by paparazzi."

It was while there that she says she and Tristan "started reconnecting," despite herself. "Seeing this man with your brand new baby and all these things, yes you do get blinded by so many things," she admitted.

At the same time, she said she had a "guard up" with him that never fully went back down -- something she came to alter realize was trying to warn her of something.

"So I'm not saying that what I did was right but God had other plans because I had my son," she said, referring to her temporary reconciliation with Tristan, that resulted in the birth of their son Tatum.

"There was something I pushed to the side and I don't know why it could have been that I was just so hormonal and new, I don't know," she said. "But I know if I didn't have a baby, I never would've stayed with Tristan like ever."

Interestingly, Khloé changed her mind as the conversation progressed about which of Tristan's cheating scandals hurt most. At first, she said it was clearly the first, "because I was pregnant," and because she "didn't get to sit with my feelings" for very long, due to having a baby less than 48 hours later.

"I don't even think I was able to process everything that happened. I think if I maybe was six months pregnant and that happened, I probably would've walked away and never went back," she said. "But because I gave birth less than two days later, I buried my head in the sand and I was like I just want to have this bliss that I always dreamed of and have a brand new baby and have the daddy here."

But as she started talking about how her choices in the aftermath of that scandal seemed to impact younger sisters Kylie and Kendall Jenner, Khloé's perspective shifted.

While they've never said as much, Khloé believes she "disappointed them" down by taking Tristan back after that first time. "They would never say that to me, and they've never said that to me, but I've always felt how much I've disappointed them by staying," she said.

As she talked about going against their perception of her, she suddenly started to wonder, "Maybe the second one hurt more because I lived with it for so much longer and maybe I had this shame with the second scandal because I sort of knew it was gonna happen again."

It wasn't just being haunted by the looks on Kylie and Kendall's faces, either, but that her own gut was warning her, and she suppressed and ignored it, and because she had "so much more time to live with it," afterward.

And, in a rare instance throughout her life, Khloé admits "I hid it from the public that I was having a second baby." Once she found out he'd not only cheated but was having a child with this other woman, she couldn't bear to be in the public eye with her own pregnancy, "and then I had to deal with this privately and that was almost worse."

"But I was so ashamed to tell the world that I was having another baby because I already knew what they were going to say and I already knew what everyone was going to say about me," she continued.

"And I already knew in my gut that that was probably going to happen again and then that sounds idiotic," she added. "Why would you be with someone?"

Even before Tristan blew up her world with his multiple cheating scandals, Khloé was dealing with infidelity and worse throughout and beyond her first marriage to Lamar Odom. On Call Her Daddy she detailed one instance where she actually tracked him down and caught him in the act.

"I was young, maybe 26, something like that. Probably still old enough to not behave like this," Khloé admitted, sharing that she tracked Lamar down to a motel where he was with some other woman.

"I remember asking the guy at the front, I'm like "Hey, where's Lamar Odom? Like, he's this big guy, you can identify him,'" she said, and the guy actually told her which room Lamar was staying in. So she went.

"Saw in the window that him and this girl were -- they were either naked or she was in lingerie, something like that," Khloé recalled. "I knocked on the door, they answered it for some reason, and I just started going ballistic."

She said that at a family function the next day, "my knuckles were all bloody and gross and I just had bandanas wrapped around," but she played it cool and "acted as if nothing ever happened, and I don't think I ever said a thing."

She said she marveled that Lamar's response was to be shocked that she found him, rather than about what he was doing. "You're this seven foot tall man. You're on the Lakers," she said she shot back. "And so I, of course, am that psychotic I searched his hashtag for his name, like any real girl does."

The reality star admitted that she still has a lot of love for her ex-husband, saying, "I really do think it was the right person, wrong time." She called it -- admitting that it's "crazy" -- "one of the best chapters of my life."

"And then also, it took away so much of my innocence," she continued. "There were things that I was exposed to that I never in a million years thought I would be exposed to."

Processing all of that hurt that changed her so fundamentally is why it proved surprisingly challenging when she and Lamar sat down for what turned into a four to five hour visit -- with Kardashians fans seeing about 30 minutes from it -- earlier this season.

"Lamar and I have so much history and to not talk to someone in almost 10 years and then to be around them and I didn't know what to expect," said Khloé. But she didn't expect her own reaction to seeing him.

"I sort of blacked out and it was just my trauma taking over and this was me in autopilot and how many things either he did or said that were triggering me to the old Lamar," she said. "so I noticed myself being short or snappy or this or that and I didn't like that version of me . And I'm sure he didn't like that version of me or what not."

"I didn't think for a second I still was holding on to anything," she said, only to be surprised when watching it back that she clearly did. "I just noticed that I turned my brain off because so much I didn't even remember being said or done until I watched the show and I was like, "Oh, damn. That was a little harsher. I can't believe I said that to him.'"

And while she said that she "loves" that they got to share that experience, she thinks there may be "so much more that maybe needs to be said and done." Just maybe not right now.

At another point in the podcast, the women bonded over women being branded "crazy," when the real question should be "what did you do?" to push me. "That's what I hate. Do not act like you did not put me in this position and you did not make me be this psychopath," said Khloé.

"But I think that's something I need to think is a red flag in a man, when they create the psychopath in me," she added.

When asked what kind of takeaways she has after these experiences, Khloé said, "Once people show you who they are, believe them," adding that this was "Something I had to learn the hard way."

"And also, you have to listen to your gut and intuition and I really was trying to mute mine I think because I wanted to have this vision of what my life was more than I would listen to something and what kind of life is that?"

Now, she says she's happily three years single, and though she'd like to be married someday, she's also kind of comfortable in her life as it is.

"I think I need to work on things with myself still because I'm really happy. I don't feel lonely. I don't feel any of that stuff," she said. "I feel great, which is actually concerning because I feel like I could go this way for ten more years."

But that's not what she wants for herself.

"I think a lot of it is, too, that I don't know, I've worked on my confidence so much and I've gotten that back or in a good place," she said. "but I don't know how confident I am in trusting myself when it comes to picking men just because of my past."

"Once you get to a certain place, you don't even miss a thing," she added. "I don't need anything. But I need to work on feeling confident in who I'm picking."

It was a wide-ranging chat with Khloé and Alex covering everything from Kris Jenner sneaking into Khloé's house when she's not home to steal her clothes to the infamous "Not-Kourtney" group chat -- and why it's back! -- and debunking family rumors, including that they're not talented.

She laughed about her mom living right next door and "spying" on her whenever she sees a different car in the driveway. "And she will always ask, 'Oh, I see there's a white car outside. Whose car is that?'" Khloé laughed. "I'm like, 'I don't f--king know. Stop asking me. I'm 40 years old and I have two kids.'"

She also said she would get alerts that "Kris Jenner is on your property" when she was away, leading her to confront her mom. "What are you doing? It's always when I'm gone. Do you not know that I'm not home?" she asked.

Turns out, Kris was just raiding her closet, "but to me, I'm like, you could ask. And you're doing it intentionally when I'm gone."

They also talked about that infamous question Kris and the family always get, which is which daughter is her favorite. Khloé laughed that it pretty much always comes down to either Kim or Kylie, but she's fine with that. "I know where I stand," she said.

"Like, I don't care. It doesn't bother me, 'cause I'm also like, girl, you're the one that calls me for everything. We're good," she added. "I'm not insecure about it."

Khloé did share that her mom has some insecurity about that infamous line that floats around: "The devil works hard, but Kris Jenner works harder." Personally, Khloé thinks it's "badass."

But she did have to debunk the rumor that Kris plants stories in the media to try and distract from other things going on. She also addressed speculation that Rob lives with her (he does not), whether she actually Facetuned her cat (she did not), and if she actually has a sex tape.

"I don't think so," she said at first, before Alex reminded her she told Andy Cohen back in 2016 she had one locked in a safe. "If I said that, then maybe. Wow. A lot happens every year," Khloé marveled. "I'm sure it was something we just did for ourselves, not like to sell somebody. Oh my god, maybe. Good for me!"

When asked if the sisters all get paid the same for The Kardashians, Khloé confirmed they do, and then admitted they have edit rights on the final cut if there's anything they would cut.

She said it's mostly just "vanity things," except for Kourtney, who she said was the "pickiest" about the edit for one very funny reason.

"She'll say, 'I say like too many times, so remove this word.' It's more that regard," she said. "it's not about a story concept, it's more verbiage … And she still says 'like' 500 times."

Alex also asked about the infamous family group chats, which went viral when Kourtney discovered there was one without her. As it turns out, there kind of still is, but this time, it's Kourtney's fault.

Khloé shared that this is a massive all-family chat that includes aunts, grandma, and even all of the "baby daddies." Then, "There's the OG group chat which is just the siblings and my mom. There's the sisters and mom, because maybe, my brother, we're talking bout men or whatever and my brother doesn't want to hear it. There's just sisters."

As for the "Not-Kourtney" chat, Khloé admitted, "there was a not-Kourtney group chat," but they did away with it. Then, though, "she left a group chat," creating a new one.

"But when people leave, I love to add them back, like, 'Who the f--k do you think you are?" Khloé laughed. "You are not leaving.' And then they get pissed, I just keep adding them."

"Who runs away from a conversation," she argued. "Either have it, or mute us like Kendall and Kylie does."

The biggest misconception about the family, though, for Khloé is this perception that the KarJenners are not talented. "I think, in the traditional sense, like no, we're not singing and dancing, yes," she said.

"I think we have so much power in marketing and branding and we've been in this business for 20 years. To be able to do that and to do that with six, seven if you include my mom, different, unique individuals and sustain and evolve and keep that going," she countered. "If we were men, you'd be like, they're marketing geniuses."

"We also get it, we're the first ones. We take it on the chin," she added.