'That killed me.' Kris Humphries has opened up about his 72-day marriage to Kim Kardashian.

Kris Humphries, the man best known for being Kim Kardashian’s husband for all of 72 days (sorry), has opened up about what that time of his life was actually like.

“I didn’t want to be Kris Humphries. It’s the craziest feeling in the world not wanting to be yourself,” he wrote in a piece for The Players Tribune.

“And I didn’t even want to say anything to defend myself, because it felt like I couldn’t win. You couldn’t go up against the tabloids.

“You can’t go up against that machine. There’s no point, And even if I played that game, I felt like it would be disrespecting the game of basketball,” he said.

Fast forward to present day and we’re on season 16 of the Kardashians. Here’s the trailer. Post continues after video.

Humphries, 34, proposed to Kardashian, 38, in 2011. They’d only been dating for seven months.

Their wedding was quite the spectacle, and was filmed by E! as part of a two part special.

But the marriage was short lived, with Kim filing for divorce 72 days later. The process took two years to be finalised.

“Look, I should have known what I was getting into. I was definitely naive about how much my life was going to change. But the one thing that really bothers me is whenever people say that my marriage was fake,” said Humphries.

“There’s definitely a lot about that world that’s not entirely real, but our actual relationship was 100% real.

“It’s never easy to go through the embarrassment of something like that, with your friends and family, but when it plays out so publicly in front of the world, it’s a whole other level. It’s brutal,” he admitted.

Humphries is a veteran NBA player, and he recalls being booed during a game in Philadelphia shortly after the marriage breakdown.

"I thought, 'Why exactly are they booing me though? Is it just because I'm that guy from TV? Do they think I was trying to be famous? Is it because they think I disrespected the game?" he asked.

"That killed me, because all I've ever wanted to be known for was basketball," he said.

After everything that happened, Humphries found himself dealing with a lot of anxiety, especially in crowds.

"I didn't want to leave my home. You feel like, I don't know, the whole world hates you - but you don't even know why. They don't even know you at all," he revealed.

He credits basketball and his family for getting him through the hard times.

When Kim has reflected in the past on her brief marriage with Humphries, she admits she rushed into it because she panicked about being 30.

"I just thought, 'holy s***, I'm 30, I better get this together. I better get married," she told Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens Live last year.

"I think a lot of girls do go through that where they freak out thinking they're getting old and have to figure it out and all their friends are having kids. It was more of that situation," she explained.

She went on to tell Cohen, "I knew on the honeymoon it wasn't going to work out."

Kim was first married at age 19, to music producer Damon Thomas. They were divorced after three years after secretly getting married in Las Vegas.

Three years after her marriage to Humphries, she wed singer Kanye West. The couple have three children.

Humphries has been mostly single since his marriage to Kim. He was briefly linked to a mystery brunette last year, but apart from that  - he has managed to dodge the glare of the media in recent years.

His article in the Player's Tribune was to mark the official end of his career, after 13 years.

His new gig is franchising restaurants and doing real estate.

 

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St. Cloud Grand Re-Opening at the #1 burger brand in America! #fiveguysstcloud

A post shared by Kris Humphries (@krishumphries) on May 23, 2018 at 10:13am PDT