Khloé Kardashian turned to the gym as a way to cope with her mental health struggles after her therapist allegedly betrayed her trust.
The “Kardashians” star shared that she began using exercise as a form of therapy after her former counselor allegedly broke doctor-patient confidentiality during her divorce from Lamar Odom.
“I remember I was going to therapy and the next thing I knew, something private I told my therapist was on a tabloid,” she told Bustle in an interview published Tuesday.
“And I knew that my therapist disclosed this information to a tabloid because there’s no way this could have gotten out there,” she continued.
Kardashian, 40, didn’t reveal what exactly was leaked by the therapist about her marriage to the former NBA player, 45, but it ended in 2013 due to infidelity and his struggles with addiction.
This traumatic experience led to her turning to fitness, but it also caused her to avoid therapy for nearly ten years.
“I stopped going to therapy and started going to the gym,” she explained. “I needed a release, but I did not trust anybody else anymore. And the place that I felt the safest was the gym.”
Kardashian described the betrayal as “very jarring and sort of unbelievable” and insisted “there’s not a chance in the world that it came from anywhere else.”
The reality star avoided seeking professional help for years after this incident until her older sister, Kim Kardashian, encouraged her to try therapy again.
“I started when I was 39,” Khloé said, noting that her new doctor is “really lovely.”
“I really like her. It’s actually Kim’s therapist,” she shared. “Kim was really adamant. I was like, ‘I’ll do this for you.’ I dragged my feet, and then I was like, ‘Wow, OK, this is good. I needed this.’”
Khloé admitted that she had a lot of emotions to process after years of keeping things inside.
“My therapist was like, ‘I think you should come three days a week.’ [Laughs.] She was like, ‘You really need to be here,’” she remembered. “It all worked out.”
With the support of her therapist, Khloé said her 40s have been everything she had hoped for.
