Lamar Odoms Ups and Downs Through the Years: Khloe, Drugs, Kids

Life has been a roller coaster for Lamar Odom.

The former professional basketball player’s career began in 1999 when he was drafted by the Los Angeles Clippers. Odom went on to play for the Miami Heat, Los Angeles Lakers and Dallas Mavericks over his nearly 15-year career in the NBA.

Shortly before he found success on the basketball court, Odom welcomed his first child, a daughter named Destiny, with his then-girlfriend Liza Morales. The twosome also share son Lamar Jr., who was born in 2002. Before Odom and Morales called it quits in 2006, she gave birth to a son named Jayden, who passed away at 6 months old of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).

Odom’s personal life started making headlines in 2009 when he met Khloé Kardashian. After a whirlwind romance, the pair tied the knot in September 2009. Following a successful wedding episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, Odom and Kardashian launched a spinoff called Khloé & Lamar in 2011. The reality series ran for two seasons.

While the twosome called it quits in December 2013 after four years of marriage amid Odom’s substance abuse issues, the athlete has only had kind words to say about his ex-wife, who shares daughter True with ex Tristan Thompson.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that she’s the best mother ever because she took care of a 29-year-old man like he was a baby,” Odom told Us Weekly in May 2019. “I had every candy, cookie, juice, champagne, ice cream. I didn’t need anything and that’s just on the small scale. She made this room for me in our home. She’s an incredible homemaker, but all women in that family are.”

He added at the time that he will “always” love Kardashian, who briefly withdrew her divorce papers and took care of him after he almost died following an overdose at a brutal in Nevada in 2015.

Thank You!

You have successfully subscribed.

“I’m just a different man now. You know what’s so crazy that you say that because I remember when I came out of the coma after the drug overdose], and I moved in the house in Calabasas in the same housing community that she lives in,” he told Us. “Because I was still damn near fried or just basically getting over being fried, I didn’t even know how to show her that I was empathetic, you know what I’m saying, and sorry and that I still loved her. I didn’t know how to go about it.”

Scroll through to revisit Odom’s ups and downs:

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tr%2FMmp6aspmjsm%2BvzqZmnJ2cmq%2BztdOyZKedp6h8sbXCrayrnaNkuaK5wKtkqJyfosBuwc%2BsZJqmlGKxsMPNrGStoKKkwqi0jK2fnmWpmq6zv4ykn6WnlWKxs8HGrGSkoZSofA%3D%3D