Travis Barker Says He Was Scared After Kourtney Kardashian First Flirted with Him: “I Can’t Mess This Up, I Can’t Mess This Up.”

14 Oct 2026, 20:41 · Thought Catalog

Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images

Updated 2 minutes ago, October 14, 2026

Travis Barker had given up on a romance with Kourtney Kardashian when her reply to his dating advice made him check his phone 4 times.

The couple made a coordinated appearance on the Met Gala red carpet at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City on May 2, 2022, with Barker in a dark suit and Kardashian in a white cropped look. Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris / Getty Images.

The Blink-182 drummer, 50, recalled in a recent interview that he’d been advising a mutual friend to approach dating like a sport. His advice was to “Try to find your bearings.” Kardashian turned it back on him: “Why don’t you teach me how to find my bearings?”

Kourtney Kardashian leans her head on Travis Barker’s shoulder as the couple takes in the action courtside at UFC 331 in Los Angeles on September 19, 2026. Photo by Luke Hales / Getty Images.

“I’d left any thoughts of us ever being anything more,” Barker said. Her response scared him because he thought, “I can’t mess this up, I can’t mess this up.”

Backstage at FanDuel’s Super Bowl Party in New Orleans, Travis Barker lifts Kourtney Kardashian into an embrace on February 7, 2025. Photo by Daniel Boczarski / Getty Images.

Their friendship grew after Barker moved to Calabasas and got to know the Kardashian family. He’d initially befriended Kim Kardashian in the early 2000s, when she worked for his then-girlfriend Paris Hilton.

Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker pose together at the Tommy Hilfiger show during New York Fashion Week on September 11, 2022. Photo by Rob Kim / Getty Images.

Barker said he’d felt comfortable being Kourtney’s friend because their differences made a relationship seem unlikely. “I was obviously tattooed from head to toe and in a band,” he said. “I can think she’s cute or attractive or a great mom” was how he described his thinking at the time.

At the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker are seen together on the red carpet during the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards on January 15, 2024. Photo by Neilson Barnard / Getty Images.

They began dating in 2021 and got engaged that October. Their April 2022 Las Vegas ceremony took place without a marriage license; they legally married in Santa Barbara the next month, then celebrated with a wedding ceremony in Italy on May 22, 2022.

In November 2023, they welcomed their first child together, son Rocky Thirteen.

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