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Khloe Kardashian responds the Kim birthday trip drama and controversy

Sarabeth Pollock
Sarabeth Pollock

Kardashian Dish

Khloe Kardashian (Photo by Allen Berezovsky/Getty Images)

Khloe Kardashian tries to smooth things over about her sister’s birthday party

The drama surrounding Kim Kardashian West’s 40th birthday bash on a private island isn’t slowing down. The meme-worthy tweet that was considered tone deaf by just about everyone continues to drum up controversy, and now Khloe Kardashian is wading into the mix by offering her thoughts about the situation.

Khloe’s comments came during her October 29 appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. “I haven’t heard a lot about it, but I did hear that people were upset that we all went out of town,” she said. “I don’t really know the extent of it. But this year is a frustrating year. I get it. I think there’s so many frustrations going on for everybody. But also it’s her 40th. This is something that she wanted to do for us. It was such a nice thing.”

Unfortunately, Khloe’s remarks really miss the point of the controversy in the first place. Many people have celebrated milestone birthdays in quarantine. Many people have missed weddings, graduations, funerals and other major life events, so the idea of flying a group of friends and family to an island for a modicum of normalcy sends a bad message.

She continues by noting that the people who work at the island were happy to have them, and they were able to pay their bills because of the event. While this was likely true, given how tourism has really taken a hit, it doesn’t help that so many people were put at risk for the sake of a birthday party.

We get the sense that the family will probably be dealing with this blowback for a while, especially now that many countries in Europe are entering the second wave of the pandemic and locking down all over again. That means holiday celebrations are now at risk, so messaging about travel during the pandemic needs to be much more thoughtful moving forward.

Sarabeth Pollock

Sarabeth Pollock

Sarabeth Pollock has been attending comic conventions before they were cool, starting with Star Trek conventions at the tender age of 11. These days she's a regular at San Diego Comic Con and has attended WonderCon, Star Wars Celebration, Amazing Las Vegas Comic Con, D23, and the Long Beach Comic Expo. She worked as an assistant athletic director at a West Coast Conference school, which cemented her lifelong love of sports. Frequent trips to Disneyland, along with training for half marathons in the Rock and Roll Marathon and runDisney circuits, help to balance out her pop culture and sport obsessions.