The two-time NBA champ has had plenty of success on the court, but his private life has been a string of personal tragedies, one after the other.
Lamar Odom was born in Queens, New York, and raised by his grandmother following the death of his mother who died of cancer when Lamar was 12. The 6-foot-10 forward had a largely absent father who had been battling drug addiction for years.
Three years after Odom’s grandmother died, in 2006, his youngest son Jayden died of SIDS when he was just six months old. In 2011, Odom’s 24-year-old cousin was killed, and after attending his funeral, Odom was a passenger in a car that struck and killed a 15-year-old pedestrian. This past summer Odom lost two close friends to drug-related deaths.
“Death always seems to be around me,” Odom told the Los Angeles Times in 2011. “I’ve been burying people for a long time. When I had to bury my child, I probably didn’t start grieving until a year and a half later.”
Odom married Khloé Kardashian in 2009 and got a taste of the reality TV world by appearing on “Keeping Up With The Kardashians” and having his own husband-wife show “Khloé & Lamar.” His marriage dissolved thanks in part to his bad-boy behaviour and their divorce was finalized in 2015.
It remains to be seen whether Lamar Odom will be able to pull through another tragedy and here’s hoping he makes a full recovery.
