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Topics: Khloe Kardashian, Celebrity, US News, Reality TV, The Kardashians, Netflix, Documentaries
Rhianna Benson
Topics: Khloe Kardashian, Celebrity, US News, Reality TV, The Kardashians, Netflix, Documentaries
Khloé Kardashian confessed to 'enabling' ex-husband Lamar Odom throughout his battle with addiction.
The reality TV star's heartbreaking admission was made during an appearance in the basketball legend's new Netflix documentary, Untold: The Death & Life of Lamar Odom.
The feature-length episode follows Odom's rise to fame, relationship history, personal heartaches, substance abuse and fall from grace.
Looking back at the latter, Khloé claimed she hadn't realised how dependent Odom was during the early days of their romance.
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"At the beginning, it was a recreational party use," the mother-of-two reflected. "As silly as this sounds, it seemed responsibly done, and I think it was two years in, around June, he disappeared."
Khloé married Odom in 2009 following his split from high school sweetheart, Liza Morales, with whom he'd welcomed three children.
During his first relationship, his and Morales' six-month-old son Jayden died of sudden infant death syndrome.
Having noticed his drug use had progressed over time, Khloé admitted during the documentary that she put this down to personal woes at the time.
"I really thought maybe something happened to him," she explained, referencing Jayden's death. "That was the first time I was like, 'Okay, this is something I’ve never experienced'. This is a dark situation, and I don’t know what to do."
Having deeply loved her husband, 41-year-old Khloé confessed to frequently overlooking Odom's abuse, in fear of pushing him further towards it.
"I was either looking for him in alleys, looking for him in motels," she recalled. "He would have tinfoil cutouts or spoons and [be] freebasing things and leaving things everywhere.
"I remember needing to go to hotel rooms to clean up after him so the housekeeping didn’t sell a story."
The Kardashians star added: "I was such an enabler without knowing I was an enabler.
"But I just felt such a responsibility to cover this up, hold it together and protect him. When I really discovered that there was a problem, he was like, 'You cannot tell anyone. I’ll lose it all. And if I lost it, where are we gonna live? What are we gonna do?'.
"At the time, I was 24. I’m still trying to figure out my life. I had the show, but we weren’t making money like that.
"I remember just keeping all these secrets and feeling horrible about myself. I didn’t sleep for years."
By 2013, the burden of the NBA star's substance abuse became too much for Khloé to bear. After reports of infidelity on Odom's part also emerged, she filed for divorce.
Two years later, Odom suffered a near-fatal overdose at a hotel in Vegas, which saw him placed on life support.
Looking back on his problematic drug use, the 46-year-old former sportsman claimed: "That first hit of cocaine that I took was amazing. Do I regret it? F**k yeah. I know cocaine is not the way to go, but it’s a high that feels so good you wish you can capture it and put it in a bottle."
On the incident that nearly killed him, however, Odom previously wrote in his 2019 book Darkness to Light: "There was an unholy concoction of cocaine, cognac and cannabis coursing through my veins. My heart stopped twice.
"I had twelve seizures and six strokes. My lungs collapsed and my kidneys ruptured. I was on life support. Everyone I’d ever loved was looking at me through bleary eyes."
Untold: The Death and Life of Lamar Odom is available to stream on Netflix now.