In a new entry for Lena Dunham‘s Lenny Letter, Khloé Kardashian recalled the rage she felt after her father, Robert Kardashian, passed away when she was 19 years old.
Dunham, 30, first explained why she, perhaps surprisingly, chose the Keeping Up With the Kardashians star, 31, to pen a personal essay for Lenny in the Tuesday, May 17, installment of her newsletter. “Since we launched Lenny in September 2015, we have dreamed of getting Ms. Khloé Kardashian to write for us,” the Girls cocreator wrote. “Jenni and I love that she’s funny, honest, self-effacing, a savvy businesswoman, and utterly devoted to her family and sisterhood in all its forms. I am more likely to check her app than I am to take my birth control, and that’s a fact.”
In the piece, “My Relationship With Spirituality,” the reality star opens up about her spiritual history and set of personal beliefs. “Believe it or not, I come from a very religious family,” Kardashian claims. “My father was Christian Armenian, and I’ve always gone to Presbyterian or Catholic schools.… We went to church every Sunday, religiously. When we started getting older, my dad stopped going to church, but he still read the Bible every single day. Sundays then became about his bringing church and religion into our home.”
Though Kardashian didn’t understand her father’s devotion to Christianity, her perception of spirituality changed after he passed away from cancer at age 59 in 2003.
“When he was dying, he wasn’t himself. He was talking like a baby; it wasn’t him. At one point he was calling me Kim, and I remember how frustrated and mad I was. I couldn’t come to terms with it. But later, I understood that he wasn’t fully there,” she wrote. “After he passed, I was bitter and angry — I was VERY angry at God. I didn’t understand why someone who was so great, my dad — why he would be taken away. My dad was such a believer, so I couldn’t come to terms with how someone with such a deep relationship with God could be gone. I was young and I needed someone to blame for what had happened. But then I started to process the end of my father’s life, and it changed something inside me.”
The multihyphenate gained an interest in near-death experiences and started reading up on the encounter. “I read Embraced by the Light [by Betty Eadie] and Angels Among Us [by Ron Rhodes], and they both helped me understand death better. They changed my views and helped me to not be so angry about my dad,” she shared. “Some of the near-death-experience books I read also talk about how our spirits essentially ‘sign up’ for different challenges in life, so that our souls can grow and serve a higher purpose. Now I believe that every person serves a purpose and that they have chosen their path.”
Since then, she has trusted in a guiding force. “I’ve always been a very spiritual person. I believe with every fiber of my being that there is a higher power. I love theology and I enjoy learning about other people’s religions,” she wrote. “One of my exes was Muslim and observed Ramadan, which is a month of fasting. You fast from sunrise to sunset to commemorate the first time the Quran was revealed to Muhammad, and I practiced it with him to be supportive.” (Kardashian dated rapper French Montana in 2014 following her split from Lamar Odom, and they famously abstained from sex during Ramadan.)
“Believing in a higher power is what guides me to make the right decisions,” Kris Jenner’s daughter continued. “While I believe in heaven and hell and angels and spirits, I don’t judge people for their beliefs. And I don’t understand how others can sit around casting judgments on people because they have different religions and a certain point of view.”
On a daily level, Kardashian prays and reflects on the Bible. “I enjoy going to church, I just haven’t found a church that I’m passionate about, where I fit in. But I have daily devotionals. Every Christmas my mom buys them for me — they tell me a prayer and give me a scripture. The devotions are just one page each, with a quote from the Bible, a breakdown of its meaning, and a daily prayer. Sometimes it’s hard for me to absorb all the information at once, so I like that the daily devotions are small enough that I can really retain the message,” she shared. “I’m very conversational with God and spirits. I talk to myself and to them but sometimes unconventionally. I’ll be lying in bed and just say out loud, ‘Lord, thank you so much for keeping my brother and sisters healthy!’ Every night I say my prayers, often with my nieces and nephews. I talk a lot to my dad if I’m feeling something where I wish he were here to guide me.”
The star concluded her note by divulging that one of the biggest challenges she has ever faced in life was when she and Odom split in 2013. “At my core, I don’t believe in divorce,” Kardashian claimed. “But I came to a point in my marriage where I had to make the choice to take care of my own mental and emotional well-being in order to protect myself and my happiness. I am at peace with that decision and do feel like I honored my vows to the very end. I feel that I kept the serious vows I made in front of God with every inch of my heart, which is why I am still honoring them today even though my relationship with my ex-husband is in a different place.”
The estranged spouses remain friends, though Kardashian has plans to finalize the divorce at some point. “I believe in caring for my partner — past or present — ‘in sickness and in health,’ and feel at peace with my relationship with God even after the fact,” she noted. “I’m thankful that I can rely on my God, who, along with my family, has led me through some of the most difficult times of my life.”
