Khloe Kardashian worked hard to seem happy during her marriage to Lamar Odom.
In the Netflix documentary Untold: The Death & Life of Lamar Odom, the Kardashians star admitted she didn’t realize she was enabling his behavior for years. She described repeatedly cleaning up after his drug-induced episodes and felt obligated to hide his struggles and protect him.
Khloe initially thought Lamar’s cocaine use was just occasional, but she soon understood he had a serious problem when he began disappearing without explanation.
She remembered realizing the extent of the issue, and he immediately begged her to keep it secret, fearing he would lose everything if she told anyone.
Khloé Kardashian, founder of Good American, said she would even clean the hotel rooms he used drugs in, to prevent the housekeeping staff from leaking the story to the press.
Khloe explained she spent years constantly struggling, either shielding Lamar Odom from harm or covering up his struggles. She felt immense pressure to maintain his public image, making sure he still appeared to be the person everyone knew. The stress was so intense, she says she barely slept for years.
Khloe also stuck by Lamar despite her ”suspicions” that he was cheating on her.
She said she hadn’t received any real support from him until he left again, and a woman he was with actually called her, asking if she could pick up her very drunk husband.
In his book, Untold, Lamar described being extremely intoxicated in Big Bear, California. He believes his then-girlfriend was so shocked by his state that she took his phone and contacted his wife.
Things were still manageable, but Khloe felt everything began to fall apart when Lamar was traded to the Dallas Mavericks in December 2011.
The player, who previously won the Sixth Man of the Year award, played for the Mavericks until the end of the 2011-2012 season. He then joined the L.A. Clippers, the team that originally drafted him in 1999.
Looking back, that was the low point of my time as an athlete,” Lamar shared in his memoir, Untold. “I was using drugs, and it got so bad I had to go to rehab to get help.
Khloe said that after his single season with the Clippers ended in 2013, he relapsed into drug use. He overdosed several times, and she even had to pump his stomach. They kept everything private, using at-home detox centers and doing everything they could to help him.
Shortly after, Khloe was urged to tell Lamar that she would file for divorce if he didn’t commit to a three-month stay in rehab.
She remembered, “Everyone around me was, like, ‘He’ll never say he wants the divorce.'”
But, he took her up on it.
Khloe said Lamar left right away and told her, “We’re getting a divorce, and I’m never returning.”
Keep reading to discover more shocking details Khloé Kardashian and Lamar Odom revealed about their relationship in the documentary Untold: The Death & Life of Lamar Odom.
Khloe and Lamar first connected in 2009 at a party Khloe hosted, thrown by Lamar’s Los Angeles Lakers teammate, Ron Artest (who later changed his name to Metta World Peace).
Khloe admitted in the Netflix documentary Untold: The Death & Life of Lamar Odom that she hadn’t known who Lamar Odom was before the party they met at. She explained she likely took the job because her brother, Rob Kardashian, a big Lakers fan, was really enthusiastic about it.
Lamar, recently crowned a champion with the Lakers, shared in the documentary that he also didn’t recognize Khloe initially. He confessed that he was attracted to her right away, saying, ‘To be honest, I tried to hook up with her the first night, but she let me know it wasn’t that kind of event.’ They connected the following day, and that led to a continuing relationship.
Just weeks after they started dating, he proposed with a nine-carat diamond ring. They married on September 27, 2009, only a month after their first meeting.
I consider myself pretty rational,” Khloe said. “But I get why people were so skeptical and questioning whether our relationship was real. We were planning a wedding in just 30 days – that’s really fast!”
As Lamar put it, “You gotta have a gut feeling” and “some big balls.”
Lamar and his former fiancée, Liza Morales, have two children together: a daughter named Destiny Odom and a son, Lamar “L.J.” Odom Jr. They were high school sweethearts in Queens, New York, but their relationship ended after the tragic loss of their 6-month-old son, Jayden, who passed away from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) on June 29, 2006.
In her memoir, Untold, Liza wrote that when Lamar texted her to say he was marrying Khloe, her first thought was that he must be kidding.
Lamar explained in his statement that people attempted to discourage him from getting married. He also said the mother of his children prevented their attendance at his wedding.
L.J. eventually enjoyed receiving Christmas gifts from Khloe and her mother, Kris Jenner, but at the time, he hadn’t even met Kris. He explained in the documentary that his father never told him he was marrying her.
Destiny, who is 27, explained in the document that if someone wants a large, public wedding with lots of cameras, that’s perfectly fine and their choice.
The reality show Khloe & Lamar first aired on April 10, 2011, on TopMob. It felt like a logical extension of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, which had already led to other spin-offs like Khloe & Kourtney Take Miami and Kourtney & Kim Take New York.
But that was not Khloe’s idea, according to the now 41-year-old.
According to the documentary, the show Khloe & Lamar was heavily influenced by Lamar. Khloe felt overwhelmed trying to manage everything, and she was also worried about protecting the family’s reputation, as Keeping Up With the Kardashians was already popular. She pointed out to Lamar that basketball with the Lakers was his primary career and questioned if he really wanted to pursue another show.
Khloé explained that filming Keeping Up With The Kardashians let her move around and avoid constant public scrutiny. She was initially a bit worried about a new show being filmed in their home constantly, but she also wanted to support her partner, who was very enthusiastic about the idea.
Destiny said of her dad, “He did love Khloe, but he’d wanted to be on reality TV for a long time.”
As Lamar explained in the document, he agreed to participate if he could marry his partner, saying, ‘If I’m marrying you, I want to be involved in everything too.’
Liza remembered in the documentary that after the Lakers won their second consecutive NBA championship in 2010, her children skipped school to go to the victory parade in downtown Los Angeles.
When they arrived at his house, they received a call saying their father wasn’t responding, even though they knew he was home.
“We were knocking on the door and there was nothing,” Destiny said, “it was just silence.”
Liza mentioned that Lamar’s friend called, explaining he’d been out late and didn’t want his kids to see him in that state, so he was likely to miss the parade. But his trainer insisted he attend, and ultimately, his children watched him participate on television.
Liza said they were heartbroken. Destiny explained that being rejected by a parent is incredibly painful and can really hinder a child’s development, creating memories that last a lifetime. She also revealed that she now understands he was struggling with partying and substance use at the time.
Khloe admitted that, surprisingly, Lamar’s early cocaine use seemed handled responsibly, according to the documentary.
She remembered he went missing about two years after they started, sometime in June. She genuinely feared the worst had happened to him.
Khloe explained that he had been struggling because June marked the anniversary of Jayden’s death. She added that it was then she realized, “This is completely new territory for me – a really difficult situation, and I’m not sure how to handle it.”
Lamar, who is now 46, explained in the documentary that he likely has many forgotten stories from that period of his life, due to his circumstances at the time.
He paused, then said, “It’s just… how could anyone even think about cheating on their wife? And to marry someone on television, then immediately be unfaithful?”
Khloe remembered the night she found out Lamar was being unfaithful. She’d had her doubts, but never any proof, until a woman called and bluntly told her, “I’m having an affair with your husband. He’s a mess, constantly asking for money and drugs, and I’m done with it. Can you please come get him?”
Khloe remembered that Lamar would often leave rehab – sometimes for as little as 12 hours, or up to two days – and then go on a drug-fueled spree. She described desperately searching for him in rundown places like alleys and cheap motels, finding evidence of his drug use – things like cut-up aluminum foil and spoons – scattered around wherever he’d been.
She explained she constantly had to tidy hotel rooms after him to prevent hotel staff from leaking information. She admitted she didn’t realize she was enabling his behavior at the time, but felt a strong need to keep everything secret and protect him.
Lamar’s drug use became extremely heavy after he was traded to the Dallas Mavericks in December 2011, according to her.
The following summer, Lamar was traded back to the L.A. Clippers, the team that originally drafted him in 1999.
Following the end of the 2012-2013 season, he relapsed into drug use, and it became very serious. Khloe shared that he overdosed multiple times, and she even had to pump his stomach on several occasions, all in private. They tried to help him at home, setting up makeshift detox environments and doing everything they could to support his recovery.
Khloe explained that an intervention specialist told her to give Lamar a clear choice: he needed to enter a three-month rehab program, or she would file for divorce.
Khloe remembered everyone thinking her husband would never admit he wanted a divorce. They staged an intervention, and after she spoke, he surprisingly said he just wanted his passport and then, bluntly, that he wanted to proceed with the divorce.
Lamar recalled that right after finalizing his divorce in 2015, he immediately wanted to relapse into drug use, lamenting that he didn’t have any cocaine.
Living in Las Vegas at the time, he ended up at the Love Ranch, a legal brothel in Crystal, Nev.
Lamar pointed out how remarkable it is that even a small choice can have a huge impact, not just on your own life, but on the lives of those you care about most.
On October 13, 2015, Lamar was discovered unconscious at the Love Ranch. According to the Nye County sheriff, witnesses reported he had used cocaine in the days leading up to the incident, and had taken ten doses of a drug intended to improve sexual performance since arriving at the ranch.
Before the release of Untold, Lamar explained to Sports Illustrated that although drugs were found in his system later, he hadn’t yet established a source for cocaine in Las Vegas and hadn’t used any that day or night.
In an interview with USA Today, he firmly denied bringing cocaine to the brothel, stating he was upset about recently signing divorce papers. He admitted he’d imagined going to the brothel and using cocaine as a way to cope with the situation, but that didn’t happen.
Khloe remembered screaming when her sister, Kim Kardashian, told her that Lamar had overdosed.
When Khloe arrived at the hospital, she said Lamar’s father, Joe Odom, who passed away in 2021, was preparing to remove him from life support. She told Joe, ‘I’m still his wife, so what do you need?’ Joe then asked for a pair of Nike shoes, $100, and a hotel room for the night. He took what she gave him and never returned.
Khloe explained that she was determined to give him every possible advantage in the fight. She ultimately relied on her own judgment more than on the advice of anyone around him.
She restricted visits, requiring her permission for anyone who wanted to come over.
Oh my gosh, when Lamar got sick, they flew him all the way from Vegas to Cedars-Sinai in L.A.! And Khloe? She was incredible. She told it in her documentary, Untold, that she practically lived at the hospital – she said she was there every single day for almost four months, just… being with him. It’s so heartbreaking, but it shows how much she loves him, you know?
After Lamar was released from the hospital in 2016, Khloe rented a house near hers for him and arranged for caregivers to look after him.
Oh my god, you won’t BELIEVE this. In the documentary, Khloe said she walked in one day and immediately smelled it – this awful, unmistakable smell of crack. Apparently, Tristan was in the bedroom, smoking it, and she just completely lost it. She said she just punched him right in the face! I mean, can you blame her? It’s just…wow. I’m obsessed with this story!
She explained that he’d gotten a phone and seemed to be doing surprisingly well, but she realized he was manipulating her to keep supporting him. She told him he needed to move out by Monday, that she would no longer financially support him, and that she didn’t want any further contact with him.
When Lamar and Khloe reunited in late 2024 after nine years apart, he told her he didn’t recall the events of the past, but also acknowledged that doesn’t mean they didn’t happen.
He used strong language to express his anger that someone would offer him cocaine, especially considering everything he had recently experienced.
“I can depend on my family,” he reflected, “but most people leave you to f–king rot in the wind.”
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2026-03-31 19:22