Khloé Kardashian will always put her children first, especially when it comes to her feelings for Tristan Thompson.

“With me and Tristan, would it be really easy to never talk to him again and to just badmouth him or whatever? Of course. But it’s way harder to be nice,” Kardashian, 39, said in an interview with Tmrw magazine published on Friday, January 12. “It’s way harder when you’re really mad at someone, it’s really hard to sit in their face in front of your kids and be like, ‘Hi!'”

The reality star and Thompson, 32, have had a tumultuous relationship over the years due to multiple cheating scandals on the athlete’s end. The pair’s on-again, off-again romance started in 2016 and they called it quits for good in 2021 following Thompson’s paternity scandal involving Maralee Nichols. Thompson fathered Nichols’ son, Theo, 2, before he and Kardashian welcomed son Tatum, 18 months, via surrogate. (Thompson and Kardashian are also parents to daughter True, 5, whom they welcomed in 2018.)

“Trust me, that’s not how I feel every day. I had to learn to take control of my feelings,” Kardashian confessed to the outlet. “There were so many times that my feelings got control of me and I was impulsive and I tweeted something or posted something and things that you regret. But in my opinion, I’ll never regret being a nice person.”

While Kardashian has mixed emotions toward Thompson, she puts those complicated feelings aside for the sake of their little ones.

Tristan Thompson, Khloe Kardashian. Jerritt Clark/Getty Images for Remy Martin
“I want my kids to have beautiful relationships with their dad,” she explained. “And if we’re blessed enough to have a dad that wants to be there and wants to show up and be hands-on, why would I prevent that from happening?”

In a November 2023 episode of The Kardashians, Thompson had a conversation with Kardashian about how he wanted to make things right with her family.

Tristan Thompson. Joseph Okpako/WireImage
“It’s all about growing. Everyone has their time for growing up. That’s what therapy helped me realize is you can’t live life with regrets,” Thompson said to Kardashian. “I am at a place where I can really see and own [up] to the mistakes I made. I don’t think years ago I knew the damage that I probably caused.”

Everything Khloe Kardashian and Her Family Have Said About Tristan Thompson on ‘The Kardashians’

In a confessional, Kardashian praised her ex for taking action towards becoming a better person, but in their chat, she reminded him that her family won’t be easy to win over.

“In this family, if you do something to one of us, it affects everyone. And they are entitled to their feelings,” she shared. “It’s not some small thing that happened. But time has gone by and it’s done. My son is here and your other son is here.”