Liza Morales, Lamar Odom's high school sweetheart, has reflected on the gut-wrenching moment she learned that her ex had married Khloé Kardashian.
"It was shocking," she told PEOPLE this week. "I couldn't escape it."
The 46-year-old has broken her silence just days before Netflix releases a documentary hinging on Odom's rise to fame, fall from grace, personal upsets and everything in between. It is understood that a significant portion of the feature-length film, titled Untold: The Death & Life of Lamar Odom, will look back on the basketball star's romance with Morales.
The couple had met at high school, and Odom popped the all-important question when they were just 20. Despite holding off their wedding, he and Morales welcomed three beautiful children in the years that followed.
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Tragedy struck in 2006, however, when Odom and Morales' six-month-old son Jayden died from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). The pair's loss had a knock-on effect on their romantic relationship, and slowly, they called it quits.
According to fashion designer Morales, she was shocked to hear that, by 2009, Odom had struck up a relationship with a certain reality TV star. He and Khloé Kardashian went public that August.
The sportsman added further salt to Morales' wounds the following month, when he wed The Kardashians star just 30 days after meeting her, and nine days after they announced their engagement.
The mother-of-two, who shares daughter Destiny, 27, and son Lamar Jr., 23, with Odom, recalled seeing news of her ex's new love life splashed across magazine front pages and entertainment broadcasts.
She claims Odom barely owned up to the relationship at the time, however.
"It was a text message and then a phone call from Lamar, 'By the way, I’m getting married'," Morales alleged. "And then, my God, it was everywhere. It wasn’t that he got married. It was how it happened. It did hurt me because of the way it was done. It was rushed."
The star continued: "And then he got married on TV, and I couldn't go to my local CVS pharmacy without seeing it all over the tabloids, and it was just always in my face, so it made it harder to heal.
"And I think hopefully Lamar learned from it."
Oddly, Morales went on to admit, she found herself drawn to watching the hit TV series upon which her ex-fiancé now starred, realising quickly that Khloé was her favourite personality.
"She was the one I liked," she confessed. "The Kardashians are enormous... then he's marrying one of them. That's a lot.
"I was always the one who had a soft spot for Khloé because she was so funny and relatable. So yeah, it was shocking, and it was hurtful."
Khloé and Lamar's marriage had begun unravelling by 2013, following reports of both infidelity and drug use on the latter's part. In 2015, two years after she'd filed for divorce, the NBA star suffered a near-fatal overdose at a hotel in Vegas.
Since then, 41-year-old Khloé has welcomed two children with another basketball star, Tristan Thompson.
Odom, 46, was arrested in January of this year on alleged DUI and double traffic violation charges.
He subsequently entered a 30-day marijuana rehabilitation programme, and is set to appear at a bench trial in July.
The sportsman still enjoys a close connection to the son and daughter he shares with Morales.
Morales admitted that, though she and her ex are far from 'best friends, they're in a good place.
"We’ve come a long way," she explained. "It took years. I had to work on myself and heal. I didn't want to have hate in my heart and harbour that.
"I had to forgive him."
Untold: The Death & Life of Lamar Odom lands on Netflix on 31 March.
Topics: Khloe Kardashian, Celebrity, US News, Reality TV
Rhianna Benson