Kim Kardashian felt like she had “Stockholm syndrome” in her marriage with Kanye West.
In the Season 7 premiere of The Kardashians, the SKIMS founder opens up about her tumultuous marriage with West, whom she divorced in 2021. As for what’s going through her mind when the rapper begins displaying erratic behavior, Kardashian says, “My poor kids.”
“Everyone around can handle it, but like … protect my babies,” Kardashian, who shares four children with West, continues. “They’re gonna know things. They’re gonna grow up. They’re gonna see. So, my job as a mom is to just make sure that at a time when that behavior is happening, they are protected.”
The reality star says that she’s been able to “hide” West’s behavior from their children “for so long,” but one of the kids recently caught on to what was really happening. Speaking of their marriage, Kardashian felt like she had “a little bit of Stockholm syndrome” because she “always felt really bad” and “always wanted to help” her ex-husband.
Now, she says she doesn’t feel “that responsibility.” What does bother her, however, is when West falsely claims that she’s keeping him from seeing their children.
“As much as people think I have the luxury of walking away and not dealing ever again, that’s not my reality,” she says. “This person, we have four kids together. It’s very confusing because it’ll be all this talk on the internet of, ‘I’m keeping the kids.’ He’s never once called and asked. I’ll wake up and it’s on Twitter that I’m keeping the kids. It’s when it’s not true and not rational, I can’t engage all the time.”
She adds, “It’s a divorce, not a kidnapping. We haven’t left. We’re in the same spot. We have the same address. He knows where his kids are at. What happened to the house you bought next door and we were gonna co-parent and do it back and forth, and you take them to school every day?”
Kardashian, who grew up watching “the best co-parenting relationships” between her mom Kris Jenner, step-parent Caitlyn Jenner, and dad Robert Kardashian, even invited West to have “dinner as a family every night” when he bought the house next door to her.
“Obviously, that wasn’t what he wanted. I get that. Maybe that’s too much,” she says, before later adding, “It is what it is.”
While Kardashian never got an apology from West, she insists that she’s “not looking for” one.
New episodes of The Kardashians drop every Thursday on Hulu.
