The Truth About Kris Jenner And Robert Kardashian's Divorce - Nicki Swift (2024)

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ByLexi LaneandJordan Robledo/Updated: Dec. 8, 2023 12:10 pm EST

"Keeping Up With the Kardashians" matriarch Kris Jenner(whose last name was Houghton at the time) married Robert Kardashian in 1978. It was then that the start of the family's empire under the famous last name began. Beginning one year after tying the know, the couple went on to have four children: Kourtney, Kim, Khloé, and Rob. Kris' husband, Robert, was best known as the lawyer involved during the O.J. Simpson trial, and she was working as a young flight attendant.

Kris and Robert started their relationship five years prior, after meeting at a horse race in 1973 — he was 28, while she was just 17, according to Cheat Sheet. However, after several children and years of marriage, the couple eventually divorced in 1991. Although both exes would eventually remarry, they managed to regain their friendship after a tumultuous separation. Here is the truth behind how it all went down.

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Although her ex-husband Robert Kardashian passed away in 2003 of cancer, media mogul Kris Jenner repaired her friendship with him up before then. A few years later, in 2011, Kris released her first memoir "Kris Jenner... and All Things Kardashian," where she revealed the cause of her divorce. According to theMirror, Kris' affair with a man dubbed "Ryan" began in 1989 — two years before she separated from Robert.

"It made me feel young, attractive, sexy, and alive. Along with these feelings came a wave of nausea. I actually wanted to throw up at the same time. Because it dawned on me that I had not felt that way with Robert for years," Kris wrote in her book. "I had lost Robert. Suddenly, I realized everything that was great about my marriage. Robert was the greatest guy in the world. He would never cheat on me. He only wanted the best for me."

The rest of the Kardashian family hasn't forgotten the affair either. According to People, as recently as 2018, daughter Kourtney Kardashian spoke about Kris cheating on her father in an episode of "Keeping Up With the Kardashians." During a conversation with her sisters, Kourtney said, "I don't think it's even about talking to my mom about it. I think it's like, we all have different experiences with my mom and I think it's not something, really, that my mom can fix."

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Decades after her divorce with the late lawyer Robert Kardashian, Kris Jenner opened up about their marriage and separation once more, in a March 2021 interview with the Wall Street Journal. Although the media mom is worth millions now, she was relatively young while married to Robert and was relatively in the dark when it came to money. The divorce prompted her to take charge, but it wasn't without struggling solo, as she hadn't paid a bill while married, she told WSJ.

"I woke up one day to responsibilities that I hadn't had the day before. And I needed to figure it out. And the good news is, I pay attention... I'm a quick study and I knew I had to get it together," Kris said."And I felt such an enormous sense of accomplishment to be able to figure it all out and pay my own bills and make my own money and do my own taxes. And there were times when I didn't have a lot of money, but I was very organized."

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In regards to her relationship with the late Robert Kardashian, Kris Jenner has always been an open book, including about her infidelity. In the fifth episode of Hulu's "The Kardashians" Season 4, the momager gave insight into her complicated marriage while speaking with Khloe Kardashian. "I think being really young and dumb is something that plays into it because you don't really understand the consequences of your actions," she explained, (viaUSA Today). When asked why she cheated on Robert, Jenner revealed that she thought she found a better relationship but realized it was a mistake. "He was such a great husband and such a great dad, and I think that I fell into a situation where I thought the grass was greener somewhere else," she admitted. "And I made a huge mistake. That's my life's biggest regret."

Toward the end of the clip, she admitted to Khloe that she wasn't proud of how she handled her relationship with Robert. This isn't the first time Jenner has opened up about her infidelity. In her 2011 memoir, "Kris Jenner ... and All Things Kardashian," the mom of six shared details about her brief affair with Ryan, who was later revealed as soccer star Todd Waterman, per The Mirror. "That kiss was more than amazing; it was like a revival, a resuscitation, an awakening from some long, deep, unconscious sleep," she explained. Jenner also wrote about her regret over the affair, writing: "I had lost Robert ... He would never cheat on me."

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Kris Jenner isn't the only one to talk about her divorce from Robert Kardashian. In the Peaco*ck documentary "House of Kardashian," Caitlyn Jenner revealed she helped speed up the pair's separation. "She was having a rough time with Robert in the divorce when I came into the picture. He was doing everything to kind of make her life miserable," she explained (per E! News). "I saw what was going on from the outside and just said, 'This is ridiculous.' So, I called Robert up and said, 'Hey, let's go to dinner.'" Caitlyn went on to say that during the meeting, she encouraged Kardashian to sign the divorce papers and move on peacefully. "I said, 'I can take over from here. So, let's just make this final signing of the papers as simple as possible.'" And he did," she continued. "We had been together five months and having a wonderful time." According to Us Weekly, Kris and Caitlyn tied the knot a month after the former's divorce from Kardashian was finalized.

While Kris and Kardashian had a messy breakup, the former lawyer maintained a good relationship with the former Olympic athlete up until his death. "He was really hurting," Caitlyn revealed in the aforementioned documentary. "I said to him... 'I just want you to know that I will always be there for the kids.' And he says, 'Oh, you didn't have to say that. I knew you would.' And a week later, he died."