Khloé Kardashian may have rejected Tristan Thompson’s first proposal, butPEOPLE has learned she accepted a second proposal — and the off-again couplewere secretly engaged for nine months.
Kardashian, 38, revealed to sister Kim Kardashian on Thursday’s episode of_The Kardashians_ that she said no to Thompson, 31, when he initially askedher to marry him. Now a source tells PEOPLE that proposal occurred in December2019.
RELATED: Khloé Kardashian Rejected Tristan Thompson ‘s Secret ProposalBecause She Wouldn’t Be ‘Proud’ Of Relationship
Despite lingering concerns about Thompson’s infidelity, the couple hadrekindled when he popped the question a second time, and Kardashian said yesaround February 2021.
Tristan Thompson and Khloe Kardashian pose for a photo as Remy Martincelebrates Tristan Thompson’s Birthday at Beauty & Essex on March 10, 2018 inLos Angeles, California
Jerritt Clark/Getty
That year, the couple were seriously planning to conceive a second childtogether. The pair’s first child, daughter True, was born in April 2018 on theimmediate heels of Kardashian’s first public embarrassment about Thompson’scheating.
RELATED: Khloe Kardashian and Tristan Thompson ‘s RelationshipTimeline
Through a surrogate, Kardashian and Thompson successfully conceived a secondchild in the final weeks of 2021 — just as news broke that Thompson hadfathered a baby with another woman, Maralee Nichols.
At that point, Kardashian called off the secret engagement in December 2021.
The pair welcomed their son, whose name is not yet known, this past August.
Kardashian allowed Thompson into the room to meet the infant, admitting, “I’vebeen on the fence about letting Tristan come to the hospital or not, butTristan wants to be here so I just figured, why not let him come? I’ ll neverget this moment back.”
RELATED: Tristan Thompson Met Son He Shares with Khloé Kardashian inHospital: ‘He Wants to Be Here’
The Kardashians season 2 khloe welcomes her son
HULU Khloe Kardashian and Tristan Thompson with their son
On the latest episode of The Kardashians , Kim alluded to the somewhatsquishy timeline of Thompson’s proposals. “I’ll never forget Tristan callingme and he was gonna propose to her on Valentine’s Day, which was a year sincethey had drama so this was last Valentine’s Day,” she said. “And then I calledhim the day after and I was like, ‘Hey, I never heard anything from Khloé. Ohmy god, did you propose?” and he was like, ‘Oh yeah, I did in December.’ Oh myGod, she didn’t tell us!”
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But once the couple did decide to make it official, they kept that informationto themselves and off the show.
RELATED: Khloé Kardashian Shares First Look into Son ‘s Birth as ShePuts Tristan Thompson ‘Trauma’ Behind Her
The Good American founder explained her reasons behind her initial refusal toget engaged on this week’s Kardashians.
“I said, ‘I need to make sure this is a totally different relationship becauseI wanna be proud to say I’m engaged to anyone,'” she recalled. “And that’s whyI said, ‘I’m not comfortable accepting this right now because I’m not excitedto tell my family,’ and as hurtful as that probably was for him to hear, itwas the truth. I’m not ever gonna accept something or give someone false hope,and I said that to him.”
Khloé Kardashian attends The 2022 Met Gala Celebrating “In America: AnAnthology of Fashion” at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 02, 2022 in NewYork City
Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty
“Going through what I went through was Tristan was incredibly hard,” she lateracknowledged in a confessional. “The hardest part about it all is trainingyourself to un-love someone. This was my life for six years. And we weren’tjust a couple, we genuinely were best friends. He was my workout buddy, we didall these things together. And so learning how to undo all those things, thattakes time. Just because someone does you dirty doesn’t mean you fall out oflove with them instantly.”
News of the secret engagement was previously reported by BuzzFeed and_Entertainment Tonight Canada_.
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New episodes of The Kardashians drop every Thursday on Hulu.