When Lamar Odom suffered a drug overdose and nearly died in October 2015 at a Nevada brothel, his soon-to-be ex-wife, Khloe Kardashian, took it upon herself to take care of him as he slowly recovered from the incident. Kardashian put on hold not only her divorce but also her career and essentially, her private life to help Odom literally get back on his feet.
After Odom was released from the hospital in January 2016, she even let him stay at her home so she could monitor him as he continued his recovery. However, unknown to her, Lamar went back to his old ways and secretly started doing drugs again. When Khloe found out, she absolutely lost it.
“You had enough awareness to get a burner phone to call a drug dealer to get what you needed to get, to send security away, to do what you needed to, for me to find out and for me to punch you in the face. Cuz I punched you in the face and I shattered everything in that house,” she recalled during their first face-to-face meeting in nine years.
Lamar turned to drugs to cope with personal tragedies
Odom was one of the most talented players of his era. At 6’10”, he had the size of a power forward and the skillset of a guard. But although he won two championships with the Los Angeles Lakers and was the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year in 2011, he never reached his full potential due to off-court and drug issues that were rooted in early-life trauma.
Lamar’s mom, Cathy Mercer, died of colon cancer when he was just 12 years old. His father was a drug addict, so he lived with his maternal grandmother after his mom passed away.
Although his grandma raised him well, he still longed for his parents and used drugs to cope with his loneliness. Odom’s drug problem worsened in 2003 when his grandma passed away, and in 2006, after his infant son died.
He met Khloe at the peak of his career when he played for the Lakers, and it seemed that NBA success would help him overcome drug addiction. But it was the other way around. His basketball career suffered, and soon, his marriage collapsed. Suddenly, Lamar’s life turned upside down, and that’s when his drug problem reached its peak.
Related: Lamar Odom was in shock when he heard the words Kobe Bryant murmured to himself: “I’m better than Mike”
Drug problem was also related to sex addiction
But drugs were only one-half of the reason for his estrangement from Khloe. As she said during another episode of her show, Odom also repeatedly cheated on her during their marriage, and the crazy thing was that his infidelity was connected to his drug use.
“I found out that he was cheating on me the majority of our marriage. I’ve always asked ‘Why?’ and obviously, Lamar did struggle with substance abuse,” Khloe said. “I do believe there was a sex addiction.”
In his book “Darkness to Light”, Odom admitted to being a sex addict, and he also revealed that sex was a trigger for his drug use. The combination of the two came to head during that tragic 2015 day when he was found unconscious at “The Love Ranch.” Luckily, he survived the ordeal, but he couldn’t have done it without his ex-wife.
Related: Khloé Kardashian recounts Tristan Thompson’s romantic gesture that got him slapped: “It was mortifying”
This story was originally published by Basketball Network on Mar 8, 2026, where it first appeared in the Off The Court section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
