Travis Barker would like the public to keep up: Yes, he thought Kim Kardashian was hot, just like he wrote about her in his 2016 memoir. No, nothing happened.
In a new interview with the LA Times, Barker slammed fan speculation that tension between his wife, Kourtney Kardashian Barker, and her sister Kim was not over brand collaborations, as they’ve maintained, but over past history between Barker and Kim.
The sisters have been squabbling in front of the camera on their reality show The Kardashians, with Kourtney accusing Kim of treating Kourtney’s Italian wedding to Barker (their third ceremony, for the record) as something of a business opportunity. Kourtney’s marital festivities featured several Dolce and Gabbana looks, and just a few months later, Kim did her own project with the fashion house. On the show, Kim revealed that there’s a group chat called “Not Kourtney” where everyone complains about Kourtney. As the name implies, Kourtney is not a member of the chat. For her part, Kourtney told her younger sister that “I have a happy life and that happiness comes when I get the fuck away from you guys. Specifically you.”
In the interview, Barker says that he’s seen the discussion about whether maybe the drama is less about gowns and more about guys. Him, specifically.
In his book, titled Can I Say: Living Large, Cheating Death, and Drums, Drums, Drums, Barker discusses eyeing Kim up while she was working as Paris Hilton’s closet organizer. This was well before his romance with Kourtney, when he was actually hooking up with Hilton.
He writes that he “kept on secretly checking out Kim,” telling a friend “I don’t care if she’s the closet girl, she’s fucking hot.”
“It’s like, ‘Kourtney’s fans are worried about Travis. He’s a womanizer.’ Stop it,” Barker told the LA Times. “I obviously shared all that stuff because I wanted to move past it. It was therapeutic for me. … That’s her sister. She knows we used to talk. Nothing bad was going on. You give people a little information and they think they’ve solved the mystery of ‘this is why they’re fighting.’ It’s just so ridiculous.”
Another ridiculous thing, according to Barker: That Kardashians viewers were wide-eyed when they realized that Travis was that Travis, Travis from Blink-182.
“Yeah, that’s what I fucking do,” he said. “I’m a drummer. Celebrity is not my identity. Or Kourt’s. She’s so different than her sisters.”
As he and Kourtney prepare for the birth of their first child together, there’s been drama aplenty, far more real than reality TV. Kourtney underwent emergency surgery in September to save their unborn child’s life. Barker, for his part, is planning on running a marathon in November, and acknowledged that before his other children from previous relationships were born, he also amped up his workout routine as a way of coping. “I just want to do superhuman challenging things when I bring someone into the world,” he said.
Otherwise, what should we know to keep up with him? “I’m the nicest,” he said. “I like Adam Sandler movies.”
Representatives for Kim and Kourtney Kardashian did not immediately respond to Vanity Fair‘s request for comment.