Kim Kardashian has opened up about the “narrative” that she keeps her four children from seeing their father, Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, and how she has “never once done that.”
The reality star and beauty mogul spoke with Alex Cooper for the Oct. 15 episode of the “Call Her Daddy” podcast about how she co-parents with Ye. Kardashian, 44, also spoke about what made her finally seek a divorce from the controversial rapper, the last time he spoke with their children, and why she decides to stay silent when Ye posts screeds about her online.
Kardashian and Ye, who were married from 2014 to 2022, share children North, 12, Saint, 9, Chicago, 7, and Psalm, 6.
“What do you think co-parenting with Kanye West is like?” Kardashian asked when Cooper broached the subject. “It’s not easy, but I raise the kids, full time. They live with me, and I welcome a great, healthy relationship with my kids and their dad, and I think he knows that.
“I push for it all the time, but I also protect them when it’s time for that. And it goes in waves and phases, and it’s a lot of work.”
Kardashian also shared the last time the children have been in contact with their father.
“Whenever he’ll call for them and ask,” she said. “It’s probably been a couple months since we’ve heard from him. They always knew that he had a big life traveling before and was always on tour and all of that, and that he lives in different countries all the time and loves to live all over the place. We manage it really well.”
TODAY.com reached out to Ye for comment but did not immediately hear back.
Kardashian tries to keep her focus on her children.
“They love their life and their routine and their schedule,” she said. “And I think just the job as their mom is just to make sure that they stick to their routine, and they’re healthy and happy.”
She also addressed the speculation that she does not let her kids see their father.
“Look, it’s not easy no matter what, co-parenting with anyone. I think that the one thing that just gets me is that there’s this narrative that I keep the kids away from him,” she said. “I’ve never once done that.
“There’s been so many times where I’ve been like, ‘Ah, I just want to show all of these texts. What are you talking about?’ Like, we just haven’t heard (from Ye),” she continued. “I beg them to go hang out or things like that.”
Ye has accused Kardashian on social media of not allowing him to see the children, which she has denied.
“It’s more of just the narrative that, like, I think it’s all good and we’re living our life, and then I just wake up and there’s all these tweets about how I’ve kidnapped the kids,” Kardashian said. “And I’m like, it’s not a kidnapping, it’s a divorce, you know? We can still all be in each other’s lives and have group dinner.”
Kardashian said her mother, reality star Kris Jenner, says she needs to give it “five years of being divorced” before “everyone can coexist and be friends.”
“Every time he has asked, I will always let them see their father,” Kardashian said. “That’s just who I am. If there’s a time where it’s just really super unhealthy, I will say, ‘Hey, let’s do it here at my house, or let’s figure out a different time.’ But actually when he is like that, he doesn’t really want to see the kids a lot.”
Kardashian said Ye has lived in Saudi Arabia, Italy and Japan, and she has “never once denied” her children going to visit him.
“I don’t keep the kids, and I think that all that narrative really sucks for me,” she said. “And if I spoke out about it and rebutted it, I’m just not that girl online that’s going to, like, fight back and be like, ‘Wait a minute, your assistant and you said you wanted a whole different birthday party, and you said your party’s at 4 (o’clock), so we did ours at noon, and now you’re going online saying (something else).’ It’s just a totally different narrative than what the reality is, and that just really sucks.”
Ye has previously said derogatory things about Kardashian on social media, but she does not respond.
“There has been so many times where I’ve written a draft and been like, ‘I’m going to go,'” she said. “And then I’m just like, ‘What’s the point? What is the point? Am I going to go back and forth? My kids are going to see this.’ They’ll figure it all out when when they want to make those decisions. And I used to be so protective and so ‘hide everything,’ and then sometimes you just can’t hide it all.”
“I never say anything negative about my kid’s dad just because it’s out there,” she continued. “Like, the last thing my kids need is for them to hear it from me. And I never saw my parents talk bad about each other no matter what was going on. I do think that that’s just who I am. I just don’t want to go there with, like, fighting back, saying negative things, you know?”
That’s not to say she hasn’t thought about it.
“I wish I did last time,” she said. “I had a good post ready to go.”
She added that it’s hard for her to stay restrained when Ye has said negative things online about her mother.
“That’s what’s really hard for me, because she loves him, and to this day still does and is super emotional about it and sad about it. It was a big part of our lives,” Kardashian said. “My kids, I say such positive things about their dad that, like, North had to say to me, ‘Mom, I think you go upstairs and, like, cry at night. Like, it’s OK. It’s time to move on. You need to have a boyfriend now.’ And I’m like, ‘Wait, what? What? I cry? No, I’m getting a massage upstairs. What do you think is happening?'”
Kardashian also shared why she split with Ye, between him saying negative things about her mother and sisters and airing out “personal stuff.”
“Just not feeling safe, not even physically, just, like, maybe emotionally or even financially,” she said, adding, “We had, like, five Lamborghinis, and I’d come home and they’d all be gone if he was in an episode. And I’d be like, ‘Oh, wait, where’s all our cars? My new car.’ And it would be like, ‘Oh, he gave them away to all of his friends.'”
“I didn’t know what you’re going to get when you wake up,” she continued. “And that’s, like, a really unsettling feeling. Lack of stability was a big thing.”
