Khloé Kardashian defends Kim’s birthday trip, talks COVID-19 battle

Khloé Kardashian and her family are standing behind Kim Kardashian and her controversial decision to throw a luxe vacation for her 40th birthday.

“I haven’t heard a lot about it, but I did hear that people were upset that we all went out of town. I don’t really know the extent of it,” Khloé says on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” airing Thursday. “But this year is a frustrating year. I get it. I think there’s so many frustrations going on for everybody. But also it’s her 40th. This is something that she wanted to do for us. It was such a nice thing.”

Following criticism from fans, Khloé, 36, alluded to the group’s numerous COVID-19 tests and quarantining ahead of traveling, and said that staff on the island, which Page Six exclusively revealed was Tetiaroa Atoll in Tahiti, were grateful for visitors.

“Being there with all the precautions that we took and being there and how grateful everyone was for the tourism aspect of it,” she says on the show. “So many people said that we were their first party of guests that they’ve had in months and what it’s done for them to be able to pay their bills or to be able to do stuff for their family, just hearing those messages when we were there, we felt really good and we felt so safe.

“We did it in the safest way I could imagine someone doing it.”

Kim’s glam photos and tone-deaf captions from the vacation garnered numerous negative reactions on social media, including one Twitter user who wrote, “I haven’t seen ma family in 4 months because I work a public-facing job and I’m absolutely terrified of the possibility of passing Covid on to my vulnerable parents. I hope you had fun pretending things were normal, but spare a thought for those of us staying in the real world.”

Khloé also opened up about her battle with COVID-19 earlier this year, saying it was “super scary” being “really, really sick.”

“I just was quarantined in my room for 16 days. We had to wait until I had negative test results for me to leave. And that was the hardest part,” she reflects. “I don’t care how beautiful of a place you have, being taken away from your child for that long, because I couldn’t be around my daughter, that was the most heart wrenching thing.”