I had been texting and talking with Khloé all day. But by September 2015, we were in the middle of a divorce. Sometimes the conversation was civil, at others, it was tense. Then there were the calls where we just screamed at each other. Crying, yelling, cussing. There was so much anger. We were looking for a love that had long passed and was never coming back. We were chasing something that no longer existed. I was renting a house in Las Vegas in order to get back in shape, and it was as hot as you want it to be in September. Liza and the kids were still in New York, and I rarely saw them during my marriage to Khloe.
I wanted one last run at the NBA. I had lost thirty pounds, and even though my body was getting stronger, I still felt like I was losing control. My mind was fragile. My confidence was low, and I didn’t feel like myself. People told me I looked good, but I didn’t take it as a compliment. It just felt like pity.
With each call or text from Khloé, I felt like I was starting to unravel a little more. I tried to unwind by hitting one of my favorite spots, a restaurant called Cleo at the SLS Las Vegas, to let off some steam with my friends. I took a table in a dark corner at the back of the restaurant and ordered a cognac. Khloé hadn’t texted for an hour, and I tried not to think about it as I savored my drink. I wanted my mind to be anywhere but on what caused me the most pain at the moment.
I thought about my sophomore year at Christ the King. I had thirty-six points in the City Title game. That was the first time anyone ever heard of Lamar Odom.
I thought about Mildred Mercer. I still can’t believe God blessed me with a grandmother with such grace, beauty, and strength. She took me from a boy to a man. I owed my life to her. When I was twelve she said something that I carry with me to this day. I didn’t understand it then, but it has come to define my life.
“What you do in the darkness comes out in the light.”
From the darkness to the light.
In the back of the dark restaurant my phone buzzed and glowed. It was Khloé. I knew if I answered, it would lead to another fight. I felt like our entire relationship was hanging in the balance. I had hurt her and I was hurt, but I felt betrayed more than anything. The people I loved had thrown me away. I know I wasn’t perfect. Far from it. I had a hand in this mess, too. It’s not easy to be with someone with habits like mine. I told my friends in that restaurant how I would do anything for that family. Not just for Khloé but for Kris, Rob, Caitlyn, Kim, Kourtney, Kendall, and Kylie. Now they didn’t want me around. Well, mostly Kris. So, Khloé by extension. Kris was only interested in protecting the Kardashian brand, which was an international phenomenon. She was the matriarch and guardian of a massive empire and the hundreds of millions of dollars it generated. It was always about her brand. I was nothing to her.
Kris called me later that night to tell me that Khloé wanted to speak to me in person the next day in LA. Khloé had gone dark after her last text, an hour or so before, so I assumed she had fallen asleep. I hadn’t seen her for a couple weeks, so I didn’t hesitate to go to Los Angeles. Actually, I couldn’t wait, so I left in the middle of the night. I didn’t even pack a change of clothes. I called my driver, George, and we headed down the I-15 freeway from Vegas for the three-and-a-half-hour drive to Los Angeles.
I was high on cocaine, weed, and alcohol. I was dead tired and wired all at once. I tried to sleep but I couldn’t. We did ninety miles an hour all the way, yet it felt like the drive took forever. But it still wasn’t enough time to find the right words to say to Khloé. I searched all night for the perfect words and they never came. I hated her and loved her all at once. I could kiss her and curse her in the same breath. But I was desperate to talk to her. I knew this was my last chance.
Kris said Khloé would be at SoulCycle in Beverly Hills at 6 AM, and she was right on time. As she walked down the sidewalk dressed in her workout clothes, I jogged across the street to say hello.
“Khloé,” I called out.
She stopped in her tracks. Right away I knew something wasn’t right.
“What are you doing here, Lamar?” she asked with a stunned expression. “I don’t want to see you.”
“I just drove all the way from fucking Vegas like you said. What are you talking about?”
She sidestepped me, and I stopped in front of her, begging to talk. I instinctively reached out to grab her arm. She pulled back quickly.
I was completely confused. I wasn’t even high anymore. I was anxious and agitated, but I had come down from the high. It all felt like a movie I didn’t want to be in.
What the fuck is going on? I thought to myself. Then I saw the first camera. Then another. Still more.
As much as the paparazzi followed me around, invaded my privacy, and made my life a living hell, I was certain of one thing: there was no way they could have known I was going to be at SoulCycle in Beverly Hills at six o’clock in the morning on a Saturday.
Well, actually, there was one way. Laugh out loud.
It had to be Kris. She must have called the paparazzi and arranged for them to be there, knowing Khloé would be caught off guard and react accordingly. Now here’s the kicker—and this will show you how devious Kris Jenner is—Khloé had no idea I was going to be there. She was frightened and jittery. From the outset it looked like I was ambushing her while she walked to her workout. We were on bad terms and she didn’t want me there. It all began to make sense.
When I realized what had happened, my rage started to boil. I was about to lose control. The cameras caught the entire encounter on tape. There had been a sliver of hope for us to reconcile. I wanted to get back together. Kris knew this was my last chance, but she didn’t want a drug addict in the family. It wasn’t good for business. Any chance I had left with Khloé exploded on the spot.
For some reason, as pissed off as I was at the paparazzi, I decided to give them an interview right there on the street. I even agreed to be miked up. I told you I wasn’t in my right mind. My head was cloudy as I rambled, angry and desperate. I was broken. I knew I was doing the wrong thing by talking, but I couldn’t stop myself.
I was sweating and pacing. I was still wearing the same black sweat suit from the night before. I said:
I don’t believe in what y’all do. I don’t believe in following people around. Even if half the things were true, people know who I am. And y’all have discredited me, beat me down, took my confidence, took everything away from me. You will not do it again.
I was one step closer to rock bottom. One step closer to death.
Two days later I returned to Las Vegas to get back to my workouts and get my mind off what happened with Khloé. I still wanted to play in the NBA, and my summer workouts were paying off. But the incident with Khloé had shaken me. My mind was swimming, and I needed the pain to go away. So, I did it the only way I knew how.
I decided to get away just for a weekend or so. My driver was in Los Angeles handling business. Greg was in Mexico on his honeymoon with his new wife, Eve. I was by myself. This made it easy for me to sneak off for a weekend getaway.
After all, I thought, I deserved it. I was doing well. I was working out. I was in the best shape since my playing days with the Lakers. And I was staying out of trouble with the law. Aside from the incident with Khloé, I had kept a low profile.
I decided to spend the weekend at the Love Ranch, a well-known desert brothel about ninety minutes from my house in Las Vegas. I packed an overnight bag and grabbed my American Express Black Card and a $25,000 wad of cash. The Ranch even sent me a driver.
As the car barreled down Interstate 160, bringing me closer to the end of my life, I thought about turning around. I looked out of the window as we got farther from the bright lights, and the barren, cold desert flew by. I had plenty of time to stop the car. To try to make things right. But I didn’t. I couldn’t.
And this is the truly sad part. I was giving up. As we floated down that highway—a stranger from the Love Ranch behind the wheel—I was giving up on my NBA career. I regret it to this day. I turned my back on the only thing that ever gave me solace. Training camps had started two weeks ago, and nobody called me. I held out hope that someone would offer me a ten-day contract. While the rest of the league was going through conditioning drills, learning new defenses, and perfecting their footwork, I was destroying my mind and my body.
It’s funny how much of my trouble has come down to drugs and women. The number of days that blended into nights that I spent with a beautiful woman and a mound of drugs.
My getaway weekend would be no different.
We pulled off the highway and the driver steered the vehicle onto a dirt road that led to the brothel. The place didn’t look like much. There was almost nothing there. A dirt-rock desert, a couple power lines, and mountains off in the distance. You know you’re there when you see the crummy red-and-yellow sign leading up to the place boasting that they’re “Always Open” and “Always Tasty.” The bottom of the sign informs you “No Sex Required.”
The buildings are low-slung, one-story beige units that look like the world’s most isolated trailer park. I jumped out and headed for the compound’s main building, which had a bright red front door. I was greeted by the property manager.
I arrived on a Saturday night and was pretty loaded and needed to sleep it off. So the first night I just crashed. The next day I wanted to mingle. I walked through the complex and exchanged pleasantries with most of the staff and met the girls who worked there. The vibe was laid-back and welcoming. I already had my eye on who I wanted to entertain me that night, but the only thing I could think about was food. I couldn’t remember the last time I ate. I didn’t want to eat alone so I ordered $500 worth of Kentucky Fried Chicken for the whole place.
After lunch I went to the bar and ordered a bottle of cognac to loosen up. On Monday, my third day there, I needed to be alone. I slept most of the day and into the night.
About twelve hours later, on Tuesday morning, my body was convulsing.
I lay on the floor, dying.
I had finally killed myself.
Maybe I wanted this, but that wasn’t important. The women who kept me company screamed and called 911. No one was strong enough to pick me up. My face was pressed against the floor. Blood ran from my nose and mouth. I have little recollection of what happened that day because I had lost consciousness sometime that morning. I’ve had to rely on the accounts of friends and family and employees of the Love Ranch.
I was taken to the hospital and delivered to a bed in room 228 at Sunrise Hospital in Las Vegas. My heart had stopped twice. I had twelve seizures and six strokes. My lungs collapsed and my kidneys ruptured. There were tubes going every which way, and I was on life support. Everyone I’d ever loved was looking at me through bleary eyes. I wanted to touch them. Kiss them. I wanted to say I’m sorry.
But I couldn’t. Because I wasn’t alive.
I stared at God. He stared right back at me.
The preacher man walked out into the hallway. My family started to cry.
I’m an addict. I was an addict. My coma is the completion of my addiction. It is the completion of my life. The end of my spiral, anxiety, pain, frustration, confusion, and lethal self-medication.
This is the final portrait of Lamar. Fuck. I’m not ready.
Today is the day I’m going to die.
Tell Lamar Jr. and Destiny I love them. I cannot. It wasn’t my plan, but I’m done. I’m scared. I’m empty. There is nowhere else for me to turn. I’ve had an answer for everything my whole life. It was part of what made me Lamar Joseph Odom. I’ve always had the answer. Queens raised me, after all. Its grit, heart, and passion flowed in my veins. The pulse of the broken, beautiful streets made my heart burst. Gave me the skill to survive, which kept me alive for thirty-five years. But that’s over now. There is no direction in which I can turn. There are no more happy endings. No more pretty girls. No more luck or good fortune. No more answers.
There is an unholy concoction of cocaine, cognac, and cannabis coursing through my veins. I bet against my demons and they won. They have conspired to stop the heart in my six-foot-ten, 256-pound body.
I am no longer in control of my life. I am a slave to everything I hate.
I am powerless. Damn. I never thought I’d say that.
My children are all I have left. Their beautiful faces, the soft touch of their skin is tattooed on my mind. The melody of their voices plays like a symphony. I want to reach out to them but they’re not here. I am alone. It’s time for me to leave this world. I tried. I really did. But I am not strong. I have no more love to give.
The hospital was put on lockdown. Before anyone knew it, word of my life-and-death struggle had spread like wildfire over social media, and the hospital was swarming with paparazzi, tourists, and curious onlookers. The staff cleared out an entire wing on the second floor and posted a security guard outside the elevator.
I was surrounded by a team of doctors who monitored my vital signs around the clock. A ventilator helped me breathe while a feeding tube was inserted in my abdomen. With all the electrodes attached to my head to monitor my brain activity, I’m sure I looked like something out of a science-fiction movie.
As I lay in room 228 behind a glass wall designed to keep germs out while allowing doctors a clear view of me, I had no idea of the chaos that was beginning to swirl around me. And none of it had anything to do with hospital equipment or frantic nurses. A force of nature was on its way: Khloé Alexandra Kardashian. To say her arrival would kick things up a notch is an understatement.
There was pure bedlam in the first-floor lobby, which doubled as a de facto waiting area—eventually spilling into the emergency room—for the crush of people who came to see me. Several hours after I was admitted, still completely unconscious, family members and friends began to arrive from all over the country. Everyone was told to wait and was given very little information. Security was tighter than any club I had ever been to.
Khloé took control.
The only people she allowed upstairs in those early hours as my life hung in the balance were her best friend, Malika Haqq; Greg; and our mutual friend Alex. Since the judge had not yet signed off on our divorce papers, Khloé and I were technically still married. That meant she controlled everything during my Vegas hospital stay. I mean everything. She was in charge of all medical decisions and was the primary contact point for the doctors who delivered constant updates. She tightly guarded access to my second-floor ward and decided who was allowed to enter the room.
The officers from the Nye County Sheriff’s Office were the one group she couldn’t rebuff. After interviewing the girls who worked at the Love Ranch, they suspected I was using drugs and showed up with a warrant to collect a blood sample. As I lay unconscious, they wanted evidence to charge me with a crime. So much for compassion. What’s a coma, give or take?
Khloé also made an exception for my former Lakers teammate Kobe Bryant and Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak. I never had a teammate I admired as much as Kobe. And Mitch, well, he made my Laker dreams come true by arranging a trade with the Miami Heat to bring me to LA in 2004. They snuck out of the MGM Grand Garden Arena three miles away during the third quarter of a preseason game with the Sacramento Kings to be by my side. The team told the media Kobe had a leg contusion.
At this point the phones were lighting up around the country. Khloé stood next to my bed trying to organize trips to the hospital for loved ones while keeping them informed. Then she called her mom, explaining the situation through tears.
“I have no idea what’s going on,” she said frantically into the phone. “The doctors are running all these tests and still can’t figure out why he’s in a coma. Where are you?”
Friends from Vegas, New York, and Los Angeles were desperately trying to get details about what happened while arranging flights to McCarran International Airport.
Several hours later, the rest of the cavalry finally arrived. Kris Jenner, Kim Kardashian, and Kylie Jenner made their way past throngs of family and friends and well-wishers crammed like sardines in the lobby.
Out front, media trucks lined the streets. Reporters from across the country did live feeds and turned over every rock for a scoop. Helicopters swirled above. The sound of their blades chopping the air was the background music of my fight to live. Kevin Frazier from Entertainment Tonight tried to win family members over with free fried chicken in hopes of getting an exclusive. Paparazzi tried to climb up service ladders to gain access to the roof. Someone even flew a drone outside my window.
The tension only worsened after the rest of the Kardashians arrived. I had cousins and childhood friends waiting for hours who got bumped out of line by my famous sisters-in-law. Obviously, I had no idea what was going on. This was Khloé’s call, and she had never even met most of my family. As far as she was concerned, they were strangers. It was starting to get rowdy on the first floor, and my loved ones’ anxiety and frustration were on the brink of boiling over. People in the lobby saw Instagram posts that said Kobe and Mitch were allowed in through a side door, and that caused stress levels to rise even higher.
“It was getting real nasty downstairs,” Greg would tell me months later while trying to piece together the week for me. “They wanted to know who was calling the shots.”
Meanwhile the tension in my hospital suite on the other side of the glass partition wasn’t any better. Aunt JaNean arrived with Destiny and Lamar Jr., who were seventeen and thirteen at the time. JaNean was tired from her flight and in no mood to deal with any shot callers, whether I was married to one of them or not. She had never met any of the Kardashians before. She was from Queens and was not easily impressed. When she entered the room, Kim and Khloé stopped what they were doing and looked up at her.
“Y’all ain’t that cute,” said Aunt JaNean dismissively. “You’re cuter on TV.”
The Kardashians sat in stunned silence, looking at each other. There wasn’t any comeback for that. Kim’s and Khloé’s faces said it all: What the fuck just happened? Plus, I know my aunt, and if they had responded, the room would have exploded. Khloé knew enough not to say anything, and it just isn’t in Kim’s nature. Though they were sitting right next to each other, they started texting back and forth furiously.
JaNean took my kids in to see me, and the doctors informed them that I could likely hear them but was unable to respond. I was told they had tears streaming down their faces. They were devastated to see their father like this. It’s probably a good thing I couldn’t see them; the heartbreak would have been too much to bear. But something special happened in that room right then. Their voices gave me strength. I could feel their heartbeats in sync with mine. The life was coming back to my body.
After Destiny and Lamar Jr. left my hospital room on the second night of my stay, Greg took them to an adjacent waiting room. Everyone was raw with emotion and trying to catch their breath. And that’s precisely when everything hit the fan. When JaNean left my room, she went to the waiting area on the other side of the glass partition and took an open seat: the very seat Kris Jenner had been sitting in for hours. When Kris got back from the restroom, she approached JaNean.
“That’s my seat,” said Kris.
“No, it isn’t,” replied JaNean. “This is my seat now, thank you.”
Khloé tried to take control. She wanted Aunt JaNean to leave the room. Bad idea.
“Y’all not his family!” Aunt JaNean shouted. “We’re his family!”
The Queens in her came out and she let off a stream of expletives. The situation was about to go off the rails, but Greg was able to usher JaNean to the nearby room where Destiny and Lamar Jr. were waiting. The “fuck yous” and “bitches” were flying in every direction. People had actually forgotten why they were there: because I was barely clinging to life. Khloé started working the phones and then met with her security. She wanted everyone who entered the room to sign nondisclosure agreements, which meant no one could talk or write about what they saw. In the middle of the chaos, they were still trying to protect their brand. My family refused to sign. When everybody balked, Khloé fumed and locked down the second floor. She added more security by the elevators and cut off all visitation. The thirty-five people downstairs had no shot to see me. Even my father, who I had just repaired a thirty-year broken relationship with, was only allowed in once.
But Khloé never left my side. She didn’t shower for four days and brushed her teeth in a small room next door. Kim’s resilience was incredible, too. She was seven months pregnant with her second child. They would put three chairs together for her to sleep across at night.
Even with all the ramped-up security, civil rights leader Jesse Jackson managed to make his way up to see me. He was initially denied entry by Khloé’s security, but after he said he wanted to pray with me, Khloé let him in. Jesse took my hand and said a prayer over my unconscious body.
Afterward, Khloé specifically asked him to avoid the media. She wanted to maintain control of all information going in and out of the room. She clung to control the narrative of my impending death like only she could. She implored Jackson to respect the family’s privacy.
Jesse left the hospital and promptly held a press conference. Khloé was furious. My friends essentially disowned Jackson. Everyone felt betrayed.
“Khloé is by his side,” Jackson told the slew of cameras. “He is unconscious but apparently the doctors say he is recovering. I don’t know how long it will take. He is in a very difficult situation. I can only pray for his recovery. But at least there is some responsiveness now. Yesterday he was almost totally unresponsive and today there are some signs of responsiveness. We just held hands and I’m hoping he will bounce back. I don’t want to use the term critical or stable, but it looks critical to me. But he’s surrounded by love and I’m sure it was a joy to the family that Kobe stopped by.”
My vitals had only slightly improved by the third day in intensive care, and I was nowhere near out of the woods. The prevailing thought was that if I didn’t recover soon, I’d have severe brain damage and limited ability to speak, walk, or function in any way. The best-case scenario that was floated to my gathered family and friends was that with the help of years of physical therapy I’d be able to eat, brush my teeth, and get dressed on my own.
The confusion, tension, and emotion in the hospital was swirling past the point of no return. People were exhausted. No one had slept or showered. Tears flooded the ward. The realization that I might never have a normal conversation with any of them again started to set in.
Then it happened.
One of the lead doctors walked into the waiting room with a grim look on his face. Everyone looked up from their phones and temporarily forgot about their petty beefs.
“I’m sorry,” the doctor began in a solemn tone. “If you would like to say your last words to Lamar, I think you should start getting your thoughts together.”
This is the absolute darkest moment of life.
Today is the day I’m going to die.
It’s my time to fade into the ether. I, Lamar Odom, will merge with the infinite. I will see my mom again. I wonder if she will recognize me. Mildred will be there, too. My son. I will go into that sweet good night. I will go from the darkness to the light.
And my spirit wants to leave. But for some reason it can’t. It’s stuck. Something is holding on to it. Then I see what’s keeping me earthbound: Destiny and Lamar Jr. I held them when they were babies. I wouldn’t let them go. Now Destiny held me in the palm of her tiny hand. Lamar Jr. wouldn’t let me go. Their voices echoed in chambers of my heart. Their love coursed through my veins. I was reborn.
I would not die that day.
A surge of life jolted through my body, nearly lifting me out of that hospital bed. I’m five feet in the air if I’m an inch. I want to scream but I can’t.
I am closer to God in this moment than I’ve ever been.
I sit up in bed and furiously begin pulling all of the tubes from my body. I rip the neuron sensors off my forehead. A cry goes up from everyone in the waiting room. Khloé screams. Kylie is bawling. Alarms and bells go off. The doctors come sprinting down the hallways. They quickly ready shots. This is new territory for them. Panic and chaos hit the second floor like a tidal wave. My monitors are going haywire. Clipboards are flying all over the place.
People start to pray.
They have never seen a miracle before.
I open my eyes for the first time in forty-eight hours. From the darkness to the light.
This is the first day of the rest of my life.
This is not the final portrait of Lamar.
I’m not ready.
I’ve learned so many lessons in this life. I’ve failed just as much as I’ve succeeded. I fall down. I get up. Or God picks me up. Or my kids do. Not the final portrait, indeed.
We are born, we live, and we die. But I did not die that day. I will keep breathing. I will keep loving. And I will believe. Today, I will live.