Khloé Kardashian was just 19 when her dad, Robert Kardashian Sr., died at age 59 — two months after being diagnosed with esophageal cancer.
Her family’s E! reality series, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, premiered four years after Robert’s death — and the show wasted no time before spotlighting the heavy subject.
The fifth episode of Season 1, which was titled “Remembering Dad,” followed the Kardashian/Jenners as they navigated the anniversary of Robert’s death. Khloé appeared to struggle far more than her siblings did, with the episode following her getting increasingly angry as she found it difficult to process her grief.
Khloé looked visibly upset within the first few minutes of the episode as her family discussed their best memories of Robert. She then said in a confessional, “My sisters and my brother have dealt with it. I get very angry or just very quiet, very distant towards my family.”
“I try to never talk about my dad or him passing away. I can talk about him and happy moments, but not him being sick,” she said before breaking down in tears and walking away from filming the confessional.
The episode ended with Khloé admitting, “I don’t know how to deal with my dad’s death as of now, but I will find a way to cope with it and overcome it.”
Fast-forward to today, and Khloé, now 40, has reflected on what it was like discussing her dad’s death on Keeping Up while she was still struggling to process it.
Speaking with grief expert David Kessler on the latest episode of her podcast, Khloé in Wonder Land, Khloé noted that she felt “incredibly angry” for years after her dad died.
“For about three years, I was incredibly angry. I was filming my show, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, and in Season 1, I remember one of my producers was making me do an interview about my dad ‘cause I wouldn’t talk about my dad,” she shared.
“At that time, if I spoke about him, I would just break down,” she explained before admitting that she was “annoyed” that the producer allegedly made her discuss her dad’s death on the show.
“I was so annoyed at this producer,” she said. “I was like, ‘Why are they making me sit in this dark room and talk about something I don’t wanna talk about?’”
However, Khloé then noted that despite finding it difficult to speak about at the time, she ended up letting go of so much “guilt and anger” as a result. “It was as if a house got lifted off of me after that conversation,” she said. “I was kicking and screaming while doing it, but as soon as I had that conversation, that was the last time that I cried when talking about my dad, in a bad way.”
“I let go of all of this guilt and anger. Now I can talk about my dad with smiles and happiness and admiration and understanding,” she said, adding that she’s now “totally at peace” with her dad’s death.
While Khloé can now see the positive impact that sharing her grief on the show had for her, it’s notably not the only time that she’s shared intimate moments of her life on camera.
From her and Lamar Odom’s heartbreaking divorce to Tristan Thompson’s numerous infidelity scandals, to scrutiny over her weight and physical appearance, Khloé has shared tons of her most personal experiences with the world.