Thank You Khloé Kardashian For Having The Same Whale Phobia As Me
I’ve never once watched an episode of The Kardashians and thought, ‘how relatable’.
They live in minimalist mansions, have four thousand kids between them and are the subject of headlines around the world every other minute. Raking in millions with every Instagram post and dashing down Dolce & Gabbana runways is certainly not part of my everyday, so I was stunned when something happened on a Kardashian holiday episode that was literally me.
Let me set the scene.
The whole Kardashian-Jenner crew headed off to Cabo (minus Kourtney, because she’s in the thick of a feud with Kim/constantly snogging her husband, Travis Barker). They booked insane accommodation that genuinely looked like a five-star spaceship, wedged into the sand of a Mexican beach.
While exploring the house and shotgunning their individual bedrooms, Khloé paused and stared out of the floor-to-ceiling window, gasping in shock.
Khloé responds to the whale situation with an appropriate level of drama. Image credit: The Kardashians
It seemed like she’d stared a ghost square in the face. Or potentially there was an axe-murderer just standing on the other side of the glass.
But the reality was much, much worse. Because she had just clocked a whale.
Now, I know what you’re thinking – in fact, I know that you’re rolling your eyes at the screen in disappointment at this – but whales are fucking frightening.
I completely understand Khloé’s rational reaction because I too am deathly afraid of whales.
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My phobia only came to me about 10 years ago, when I moved to Australia and found myself in much closer proximity to these terrifying creatures than I had ever been before, living safely inland in England. Suddenly, I was on coastal walks and whales would be breaching in the ocean beside me. I would be swimming in the sea and someone would gleefully scream out “WHALE!” and I would front crawl as fast as I bloody could to get to shore.
I know that whales aren’t as famously ‘nasty’ or ‘murdery’ as their fishy friends, sharks, but they are much scarier due to one key detail: their size.
No living thing should be that big. Ever. The fact that you can’t compare a blue whale’s size to anything other than ACTUAL BUILDINGS is foul.
And Khloé is in complete agreement. After the episode of The Kardashians aired, broadcasting her phobia to the entire world, Khloé headed to Twitter (or X, or whatever Elon has decided to name it today) to give a little context around her fears.
This has been a phobia of mine for years. I don’t want anything bad to happen to whales and I know the phobia is totally irrational, but we don’t pick our phobias. I low-key have a fear of the ocean, but a whale I can’t even look at, it freaks me out so much.
— Khloé (@khloekardashian) September 29, 2023
And then, because the internet is a cruel, cruel place, people started sending pictures of whales directly to Khloé. As someone who has aired her fears to what I believed to be friends, and then those supposed friends tag me in every whale picture on the web, I can confirm this is VERY MEAN AND SCARY.
Even though the scale of the beast isn’t immediately obvious from a thumbnail pic, the shiver of pure terror still gets me with even a glance of a whale. So stop sending them, for the love of god, please stop.
Can you guys please stop sending me whale tweets. I’m going to log off. It’s too much lol I’m really getting uncomfortable
— Khloé (@khloekardashian) September 29, 2023
While I know it won’t be the biggest story to come out of this season of The Kardashians, I am personally very grateful to know that there’s another person out there just as spooked by giant whales as I am. Even if I really wasn’t expecting that person to be Khloé Kardashian.
Image credit: The Kardashians + Punkee