Travis Barker has revealed the bold move his wife, Kourtney Kardashian, made when she wanted to be more than friends.
The musician, who rose to fame with his pop-punk band Blink-182 in the late Nineties and early Noughties, married the reality TV star, his third wife, in 2022 after two years of dating.
Before that, they had been friends for some time as Barker became acquainted with the Kardashians through his then-girlfriend, Paris Hilton.
Speaking to the Times, Barker has now revealed how he first got together with Kourtney, his friend of 15 years, after initially believing them to be “such opposites”.
“When we first met, I was obviously tattooed from head to toe and in a band,” he recalled. “I think that’s why I felt so comfortable being Kourtney’s friend because we were such opposites. I was like, oh I can think she’s cute or attractive or a great mom [Kourtney had three children from her former partner, Scott Disick] because we’re so different.”
Their relationship apparently shifted in 2021 when Kourtney texted him “something crazy”, Barker recalled – according to the interviewer, he became “a bit coy and giggly” when remembering the moment he got an alert on his phone.
“I was like, what? I had to look at my phone four times,” he said. “I thought, there’s no way! I’d left any thoughts of us being anything more.”
Pressed to divulge what it was Kourtney said, Barker explained that he’d given one of their mutual friends some dating advice: “I was like, just have fun hooking up with girls. Think of it like a sport. Don’t try to get emotionally invested with everyone. Try to find your bearings.”
The friend seemingly then passed this on to Kourtney, as she apparently texted Barker something along the lines of: “Why don’t you teach me how to find my bearings?”
“I’m like, oh my gosh,” he said. “And I was scared because I thought, I can’t mess this up, I can’t mess this up.”
Barker and Kourtney made their relationship “Instagram official” in 2021, and married a year later.
They had three ceremonies, including one non-legal event at a wedding chapel in Las Vegas, before an official courthouse ceremony in California on 15 May 2022, which was only attended by Kourtney’s grandmother, Mary Jo Campbell, and Travis’s father Randy Barker.
The couple then held a third ceremony in Portofino, on the Italian Riviera, where they were hosted by Dolce & Gabbana founders Stefano Gabbana and Domenico Dolce at their L’Ulivetta villa.
Barker credited his wife with helping him recover from his substance abuse problems following a traumatic plane crash in 2009, in which two pilots and two of Barker’s close friends were killed. His other friend and the only other survivor, Adam Goldstein, died of an overdose less than a year later.
Kourtney also convinced Barker to fly again after they began dating in 2021. He told the Times that their relationship was strong because they started as friends first.
They share a son together, Rocky Thirteen Barker, who was born on 1 November 2023. Barker has two children from his previous marriage to Shanna Moakler, and a stepdaughter, Atiana, whom he remains close with.
Barker is also step-father to Kourtney’s three children with Disick.
This week, he shared that he had undergone surgery to fix a nerve issue after experiencing numbness in his arm, hand and fingers for over a month after a show.
He assured fans that he wanted to have the surgery “so that I can keep playing the way I play for a long, long time”, adding that he should be recovered “in a few weeks”.
He also shared a photo from the hospital taken by Kourtney, showing him in his hospital gown and surgical cap. “I’m not sure why my wife looks so happy about this,” he joked.
Barker is the subject of a new documentary, Louder Than Fear, which is out now on Disney+.
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