Let’s be real for a second. If you’ve spent more than five minutes on the internet in the last decade, you’ve seen the side-by-side photos. You know the ones. It’s usually a grainy shot of a young Khloe Kardashian next to a photo of O.J. Simpson or Alex Roldan. The captions are always some variation of "The truth is out!" or "Who is Khloe’s real father?" It’s a rabbit hole that never seems to end. Honestly, it’s one of those pop culture mysteries that refuses to die, mostly because the Kardashian family—especially Kris Jenner—knows exactly how to keep us talking.
But what’s actually true? Is there any hard evidence, or is this just a case of genetics being a bit of a wildcard?
The Robert Kardashian Factor
First things first: the man who raised her. Robert Kardashian Sr. was, by all accounts, her dad. He’s on the birth certificate. He changed the diapers. He was there for the tantrums and the school plays. In a 1999 court document during a legal battle with Kris, Robert actually signed a statement affirming that he was the father of all four of his children, including Khloe.
People love to point out that Khloe looks "different." She’s significantly taller than Kim and Kourtney (Khloe is 5'10", while her sisters barely crack 5'3"). She has a different bone structure. But genetics are weird, guys. Have you ever seen a family where one kid is a basketball player and the other is a hobbit? It happens.
Robert’s later wives, Jan Ashley and Ellen Kardashian, are the ones who really poured gasoline on the fire. Around 2012, they started telling tabloids that Robert had "doubts" about Khloe's paternity. Jan claimed he told her point-blank that Khloe wasn't his. But here’s the kicker: she also admitted he never wanted a DNA test because he loved Khloe and didn't want to know. If he didn't care, why do we?
That Persistent O.J. Simpson Theory
The O.J. thing is the big one. It’s dark, it’s dramatic, and it’s perfectly scripted for a reality show. Robert Kardashian was O.J.’s defense attorney and best friend. Kris Jenner was best friends with Nicole Brown Simpson. The families were inseparable.
The rumor goes that Kris and O.J. had an affair in the early '80s, and Khloe was the result.
O.J. himself tried to shut this down multiple times before he passed away. On the Full Send podcast in 2022, he was pretty blunt about it. He said he was dating supermodels back then and that the rumor "ain't true." Kris Jenner has called the allegations "tasteless and disgusting."
Even Khloe and Kim have started joking about it lately. In a late 2025 episode of The Kardashians, Kim bought Robert Sr.’s old bible at an auction—the same one he’d given to O.J. during the trial. The sisters joked about "both of my dads" having their hands on it. When you can laugh about it on Hulu, you’ve basically won the PR war.
Who is Alex Roldan?
If you want to get into the deep-cut conspiracy theories, you have to talk about Alex Roldan. He was Kris Jenner’s hairdresser for something like 30 years.
He’s tall. He has a very specific nose shape. He looks... well, he looks a lot like Khloe did before the "glow-up" (and the various procedures). Back in 2012, Kylie Jenner even tweeted a photo of Khloe and Alex with the caption, "First official photo of my sister and her dad!"
She later said it was a joke, but the internet doesn't do "jokes" when it comes to Kardashian paternity.
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The Alex Roldan theory is the one that really sticks for the "Truthers" because the physical resemblance is striking. But again, resemblance isn't proof. You can find a doppelgänger for almost anyone if you look hard enough at enough 80s Polaroids.
The DNA Tests That Weren't
One of the most frustrating parts of this saga for fans is how the show handled it. On Keeping Up With The Kardashians, there were multiple episodes where paternity was the "A-plot."
In one episode, Kris actually encourages Khloe to take a DNA test to silence the haters. Khloe refuses. Her logic? Robert is her dad, period. She didn't feel she needed a piece of paper to validate the man who loved her.
Later, they did a 23andMe-style test for a "fun" segment. That test showed Khloe had a significant percentage of Middle Eastern/Armenian heritage—just like Kim and Kourtney. This is probably the strongest "fact" we have. Unless Kris was having an affair with another Armenian man (which hasn't been a major theory), that DNA result pretty much locks in Robert Kardashian as the biological father.
Why We Can't Let It Go
Honestly, we’re obsessed with this because it’s a "secret" in a family that has no secrets. We’ve seen their births, their divorces, and their bathroom habits. This is the one thing they haven't "proven" with a lab report on camera.
But we also have to acknowledge the human element. Khloe has talked about how much these rumors hurt. Imagine the world telling you every day that the man you grieved—the man who was your hero—wasn't actually your father. That’s heavy.
She even posts photos of her son, Tatum, and her daughter, True, pointing out how much they look like her brother Rob or her father Robert. It feels like she’s constantly trying to prove she belongs in her own family.
The Bottom Line
Is there a 100% definitive, lab-certified answer available to the public? No. Will there ever be? Probably not.
But if we look at the evidence we do have:
- Robert Kardashian claimed her as his own legally and emotionally.
- DNA ethnicity tests show Armenian heritage consistent with the Kardashian lineage.
- Every "candidate" for the "real dad" title has denied it or stayed silent.
The "real dad" is the guy who was there. In Khloe’s mind, that’s Robert. Everything else is just tabloid noise used to fill space between commercial breaks.
Next Steps for the Curious
If you're still skeptical, the best thing to do is look at the ancestry breakdown from the Season 15 DNA episode rather than side-by-side photos. Visual "matching" is notoriously unreliable in genetics—look at how many people think they look like a celebrity they share zero DNA with. You should also check out Kris Jenner's memoir, Kris Jenner... and All Things Kardashian, where she admits to an affair with a man she calls "Ryan" (Todd Waterman), but maintains it happened years after Khloe was born. Stick to the timelines and the data, and the mystery starts to look a lot more like simple family variation.