• Khloe Kardashian recently gave birth to her first child.
• Less than two days before, the baby's father Tristan Thompson was hit with allegations that he had been cheating on Khloe throughout her pregnancy.
• The Daily Mail published amateur photos of Thompson allegedly cheating with a woman in a club, taken recently by a bystander.
• Soon after, TMZ published surveillance footage from October that appeared to show Thompson cheating with two other women.
• Given Kris Jenner's friendly relationship with TMZ founder Harvey Levin, some people believe that the Kardashians knew about the footage at the time and buried the story.
• The theory, if true, demonstrates the impressive influence that the Kardashian-Jenner family exerts over their own media narrative.

Reports that Tristan Thompson has been habitually cheating on the woman carrying his child — not to mention one of the most famous women in the world, Khloe Kardashian — have captivated the internet. 

However, Kardashian scholars have cast a suspicious eye on the alleged breaking news. Considering the timing of the scandal, the websites involved, and the family's remarkable media savvy, some theorize that Khloe and company have known about Thompson's behavior for months. Let's take a look at the evidence.

Thompson has been accused of cheating on his pregnant ex-girlfriend, model Jordan Craig, with Khloe.

This has never been confirmed or even addressed by members of the Kardashian family. Neither Craig nor Thompson have spoken publicly about the reason why they broke up — or why Thompson and Khloe stepped out as an official couple when Craig was already six months pregnant.

However, some people believe that this situation sets a precedent for Khloe's knowledge of — and possible complicity in — Thompson's infidelity.

On the 10th anniversary special of "Keeping Up With the Kardashians," Khloe revealed that they met through an "ambush blind date," set up by mutual friend and NBA player Brandon Jennings. Essentially, it seems that Jennings had the idea that they would make a good couple — and that neither Khloe nor Thompson went to the Bel-Air hotel that night with the intention to begin dating.

In fact, Bossip claimed that Thompson and Craig, who dated for about two years, were "very much still an item" when he was initially filmed making out with Khloe on Snapchat. 

"When Khloe first started dating Tristan, her family questioned if it was a good idea. There were several concerns, including that he is another basketball player and also that his ex was pregnant," an unnamed source recently told People.

TMZ's footage of Thompson allegedly cheating, released last week, was filmed in October.

On April 10, TMZ published a surveillance video that was reportedly taken back in October — when Khloe was three months pregnant — of Thompson appearing to cheat on her with two women at a hookah lounge outside Washington, DC. 

The video was recorded on October 7, 2017, the night before Thompson and the Cleveland Cavaliers played the Washington Wizards.

As journalist and "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" expert Mariah Smith noted, Khloe flew back to LA from Cleveland, Ohio, on the same day. 

It seemed strange to many people that TMZ would publish a video recorded in October mere days before Khloe was set to give birth — especially since security camera footage is typically wiped from hard drives after a short period of time. 

Notorious gossip columnist Perez Hilton alleged in a tweet that TMZ must have been holding onto the footage since October.

Kris Jenner and TMZ founder Harvey Levin have a friendly — and mutually beneficial — relationship.

In 2013, Levin appeared as a co-host on Kris Jenner's now-cancelled talk show "Kris." 

"I think people have this preconceived notion that we don't get along," Jenner said when she introduced Levin. The pair also noted that they are "old friends."

As Jordan Sarge noted for Spin, Jenner and Levin's friendship seems to have evolved into a professional, collaborative relationship with a surprisingly powerful hold on pop culture news.

"The two have gone on to enjoy a mutually beneficial relationship, with Levin's website helping give rise to the family, and the family providing an ample amount of material for the website, including suspiciously well-sourced exclusives, creating an unceasing feedback loop that has helped make each enormously rich and famous," Sarge writes.

It seems entirely possible that Kris Jenner had a hand in killing TMZ's story about Thompson cheating back in October.

TMZ broke the story about Khloe's pregnancy back in September — but not before giving her a head's up.

On September 26, more than two months before Khloe confirmed the news via Instagram, TMZ announced that she was pregnant. However, "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" fans know that the website had alerted Khloe before breaking the news.

Episode 18 of the show's most recent season, "Trimester Trouble," documented the correspondence. Khloe, still in her first trimester, didn't want the story to run because she didn't want to jinx the safety of her pregnancy. But TMZ gave her an ultimatum: if she didn't explicitly deny the rumor, it would publish the story.

Khloe decided she didn't want to lie and, essentially, gave the website her blessing.

It seems reasonable to assume that TMZ would have allowed a similar courtesy when obtaining footage of boyfriend Thompson cheating. 

Smith theorizes that Khloe's implicit blessing may have also earned her some "good faith with the professional team of snitches." It's possible that TMZ neglected to publish the October footage as an act of good faith during Khloe's pregnancy, or that they received exclusive tips in return — like the family's new $150 million deal with E!.

TMZ posted its exclusive footage a mere nine minutes after cheating allegations were published by other websites.

News of Thompson's alleged cheating was initially published by The Daily Mail, which reported that Thompson was seen kissing an unidentified woman at PH-D Lounge in New York City on Saturday, April 7.

Shortly after, The Shade Room published exclusive photos that were apparently purchased from Splash News, an agency that provides paparazzi footage of celebrities. None of these gossip sites, as Smith notes, are loyal to the Kardashians. 

"Since it's such a large story that obviously wouldn't have flown under the radar, TMZ would have looked like fools not to hop on the [Tristan Thompson] Train and release what they did have," Smith writes.

TMZ was able to regain the upper hand by publishing more damning evidence of Thompson's dalliances. Even if the family had buried the video back in October, the photos of Thompson with another woman seem to have negated any need for discretion.

TMZ also broke the news about Khloe giving birth.

Interestingly, despite only giving birth a few months apart, Khloe's birth reveal has been vastly different from Kylie Jenner's. 

Kylie broke the news that she had given birth on her own social media accounts, days after she had gone to and left from the hospital. But Khloe has not yet commented on her own daughter, instead allowing TMZ to break the story — citing "our Kardashian sources"— and her family members to confirm it. 

One could even argue that Kylie's birth would have been more difficult to conceal, given that she was at a high-profile hospital in LA and Khloe is still in Cleveland. 

Khloe may have been blindsided by the most recent cheating allegations — but the secrecy thus far speaks to the family's powerful influence over their own media narrative.

It appears that Khloe has been sincere in her love for Thompson. She has been prolific with emotional social media posts and remained in Cleveland, Thompson's home base for his NBA career, to give birth.

However, if true, the theory that Khloe had already known about Thompson's alleged infidelity says volumes about the family's ability to craft an engaging — and lucrative — storyline. Hypothetically, with TMZ holding the October footage, Khloe would have been able to enjoy a pregnancy free from public relationship drama.

It's also hard to imagine that the Kardashians won't find some way to profit from the scandal. People has already reported that "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" will document Khloe giving birth and dealing with the cheating fallout.

It's unclear where the couple will go from here. People has also reported that Khloe "isn't even mad at Tristan right now."

But the tragic, intricate, and fascinating tale of their daughter's birth week will go down in history as some of the most impressive evidence of the power that Kris Jenner and company wield over our collective pop culture consciousness. 

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