Travis Barker Admitted to ‘Secretly Checking Out’ Kim Kardashian in His 2015 Book: ‘She’s F—king Hot’

Awkward! Travis Barker admitted to “secretly checking out” Kim Kardashian in his 2015 book, Can I Say: Living Large, Cheating Death, and Drums, Drums, Drums. 

The Blink-182 rocker, 45, who is now dating her sister Kourtney Kardashian, detailed his meeting with Kim, 40, when she had yet to rise to fame and was working for hotel heiress Paris Hilton. Travis revealed the Simple Life star, 40, was flying over to Amsterdam to see his band’s show and brought along the KKW Beauty mogul for the trip. 

“She was working as Paris’s closet girl. She would grab Paris’s bags, put them in the closet, unpack them, put everything where Paris could find it,” the drummer noted. “Everywhere we went, a pack of paparazzi were following us, but I didn’t care. I was having a blast and was happy to let the world know it.” 

Travis said Kim caught his eye when they were all hanging out and he told a friend, “I don’t care if she’s the closet girl, she’s f–king hot.”

The “All the Small Things” hitmaker said he and now-ex Shanna Moakler, 46, were on the rocks at the time and he was just trying to go out and forget about their troubles. “Our relationship was just as toxic as ever, and we had the same argument over and over,” Travis penned. “If I was with her, I wanted us to stay home with the kids. Then we’d fight, and Shanna would go out and party, so I’d go out too.” Travis and Shanna were married from October 2004 to February 2008.

He shared that during their “time off” was when he and Kim started talking. “We had stayed in touch after Amsterdam, and she did some modeling for [my brand] Famous. I hired Estevan Oriol to shoot a whole ad campaign of her in bathing suits. Kim’s [sex] tape had come out and she had broken up with Ray J,” Travis wrote. “She wanted to do a reality show, because she thought her family was interesting. And obviously she was right. I respected her hustle.”

“I wanted to be nothing but a gentleman to her,” he confessed about their dynamic in another chapter, revealing it did end up causing more drama for him at home. “Shanna and I started talking to each other again, and we reunited one more time, but I really wanted to see Kim. (Shanna caught wind of what was going on. She poured a drink on Kim at a party thrown by Carmen Electra. I felt terrible.) Kim and I never touched each other. It just wasn’t meant to be.“

Travis said he ultimately moved out of the home he shared with Shanna, but Kim lived right next door with her now-estranged husband Kanye West, whom she married in May 2014. Kim filed for divorce from the “Famous“ rapper in February 2021.

The rocker is now going strong with Kourtney, although his connection with Kim made headlines on May 15. Shanna allegedly accused Travis of cheating on her with Kim during their marriage in a newly surfaced direct message, but it’s “absolutely not true,“ a source close to the situation exclusively told In Touch.