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In case you missed it, the whole saga dates back almost a full year, and it all started when a high school teacher from California by the name of Yacob Myers-Norys posted an Instagram video that highlighted his Italian roots, two college degrees, a former collegiate athletic career, and his love of cooking. In the caption, he added: "somewhere out there is the woman who's gonna ask how my school day was."
This video ended up on Khloé’s algorithm, and she caused a bit of a frenzy when she took the bait and commented: “How was your day??" To which Yacob replied: "mine is great now. How was yours?" Khloé then responded with, "mine is great too 🥰."
That was the end of it from Khloé’s standpoint, but Yacob appeared to be very excited about the whole thing, sharing several videos about the interaction and publicly inviting Khloé to his school’s holiday party as well as his friend’s wedding — all of which she ignored… Until recently.
You see, when the Season 8 premiere of The Kardashians aired on Hulu on Oct. 8, Khloé opened up about the interaction, and what she had to say did not land well with viewers.
"So there was this teacher, really cute, young man I saw, and on his Instagram, he highlighted some of his great characteristics. And then in the caption, something like, 'I can't wait for a woman to ask me how my day was.' I thought it was cute. I thought it was wholesome. I just wrote in the caption, 'How was your day?' It was that innocent,” she began.
Khloé reiterated that she'd never intended for the exchange to become anything serious, adding: "Do I think I'm gonna go and marry this young man? Absolutely not. I just wrote, 'How was your day?' This thing took off like wildfire."
She then held her phone toward the camera and started scrolling through his messages, saying: "I have, like, 15 DMs from him that have gone unresponded. I'm gonna show you." As she scrolled, Khloé read several of his messages out loud, including: "If anything, I just want to say thank you for everything. I know it was just a comment," "Love to hear how your day was," and "Just shooting my shot once again. I would love to meet you and talk about how your day was."
After reading the messages, Khloé landed a final blow as she took a jab at the pronunciation of his name, saying: “Calm down, Yacob. Just be cool… And his name is Yacob? Yacob, please, get a J."
Perhaps unsurprisingly, many were left unimpressed by how Khloé had publicly handled the situation, with the star being called “mean” for embarrassing someone who is very much not a celebrity on a TV show. One Instagram comment summing up the discourse at the time reads: “It definitely gave mean girl energy when I watched this part at the very end of their new episode! It felt very unnecessary to just put him on blast like that about the private messages he sent her and she topped it off with making fun of his name on TV.”
For what it’s worth, Yacob himself appeared to see the funny side, sharing a video of himself at his desk with the caption: "When they try to roast and embarrass me on The Kardashians, but I get roasted by high schoolers every single day." He also joked in the caption: "Hey, at least I can say I made it onto The Kardashians 😂💀"
And amid the backlash, Khloé commented on an Instagram video of someone defending her by saying: "Thank you for your kind words. I wish I said more about the situation on camera because I don't sound too nice. I will admit. I thought he was nice but he kept going and going." She then explained what had made her uncomfortable, revealing: "I think what made me turn was how he posted screenshots of him and his family saying to get an air mattress for me for a sleepover. Sort of weird. It was getting creepy. Not to mention a framed photo of us in the back of his videos. It was getting to be a lot."
Yacob ended up responding to this on another post, saying: “First, the whole air mattress and sleepover thing was literally a social media trend that was going around. It was the 'Sometimes you just gotta read your family group chat and move on with your day' trend." He then explained: “And as for the framed picture, that was literally a prank gift from my high school students during our Christmas rally. Every year, students give teachers funny gifts, like giving a bald teacher a comb. My entire school apparently thought it would be hilarious to give me a framed picture of Khloé and me. I had absolutely no idea they were doing it, but obviously I thought it was funny. I understand everyone has their own perspective, but I do think context matters. None of it was meant to make anyone uncomfortable."
And now, Khloé has addressed the entire fallout during the latest episode of her podcast, Khloé in Wonder Land — and what she said has — perhaps surprisingly — prompted a huge U-turn from many people on the situation.
After rehashing the initial Instagram comment, Khloé said: “I just thought it was a cute, fun moment — but that was it. The teacher, at first, was really sweet, like: ‘Oh my gosh, thank you so much for commenting under my page. I can't believe how much this is taking off, blah blah,’ it spread like wildfire. I didn't even see any of these messages until later."
“Then he keeps doing different TikToks, different videos, or maybe Instagrams, I don't know which ones, around Thanksgiving time he was putting on his stories: ‘I’m going to LA to see a special girl. Any hints who it can be?’ He was, like, alluding to coming to see me,” she went on. “He has a photo of me and him with a heart framed behind him when he talks — I also think that's weird.”
“Then he started sharing screenshots from him and his family having a chat, and them being like: ‘Let's get Khloé an air mattress so she can sleep over when she comes here for Thanksgiving,’ or whatever,” Khloé recalled. “He’s posting this stuff, I’m like: ‘Dude, all I said was how are you doing!’ Then, when I did the interview for the show, they were asking me, and I was, like, so frustrated at this point, because he's sending me messages on DMs asking me to engage with him, and so I said a few things on my show…”
As mentioned, Khloé’s new comments on the situation led to people being more sympathetic to her initial response to the whole thing, with many using it as an example of men in general getting carried away when a woman gives them attention. One of the top comments, with more than 98,000 likes, on a TikTok clip of the podcast reads: “Prime example of if you give them an inch they’ll take a mile 🙄😂”
“God forbid you’re nice to a man and they RUNNNNN with it,” somebody else wrote, while another added: "I felt bad he got out on blast but he overdid it.” One more noted: “It’s crazy too because there’s so many women on his page saying Khloe was being mean and that she commented first, like does that give him the right to be weird asf.”
Meanwhile, another comment reads: “It would be the last time I ever commented on a stranger’s post.”
After Khloé’s podcast episode came out, Yacob released a three-minute-long TikTok video to share his side of the story, starting with the fact that he didn’t send her 15 DMs, instead insisting it was “closer to seven,” in addition to tagging her “in a few posts and stories.”
He reiterated that the air mattress text was just a joke and part of a social media trend, and that the framed photo was a gift from his students — not a “shrine” to Khloé.
Addressing her comments, he added that he “genuinely wants to apologize” for making Khloé “uncomfortable” as he acknowledged that his behavior may not have respected her “boundaries.” You can watch Yacob’s full video below:
Yacob Myers-Norys / Via tiktok.com
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