In 2015, Lamar Odom"s health crisis terrified his fans, his loved ones, and especially his then-soon-to-be-ex-wife, Khloe Kardashian.
Despite the salacious circumstances — he was rushed to the hospital from a brothel, after all — there are still things that we don"t know about that scary time.
Now, Lamar is opening up about how close things got — and this is one for the medical textbooks.
Kevin Hart has a new sports-based comedy series called Cold as Balls.
In it, he sits down with Lamar Odom in icewater — a common tactic for athletes to reduce swelling and to flush lactic acid out of their bodies. For Hart"s show, it"s just a gimmick.
Lamar tells Hart exactly how bad things got during his famous 2015 health crisis.
"All my doctors that see me say I’m a walking miracle," Lamar reveals.
Lamar then makes an astounding statement: "I had 12 strokes and six heart attacks when I was in a coma,”
12 strokes is more than most entire families have. And he had them while he was in a coma.
And, in case it needs saying, 6 is a lot of heart attacks for one person to have.
“Every day, I’m alive," Lamar says.
You know what? He sure is.
"It’s much better than the alternative," Lamar says, stating the obvious.
Even if you hold religious convictions that tell you that you have a pleasant afterlife ot anticipate, nobody is in a rush to get there. Life is life.
Lamar says that his "anxiety" and "bad decisions" were two huge factors behind his addiction struggles.
But though no one expects an athlete his age to nearly lose his life at a brothel, he says that he was surprised and awed to wake up with Khloe by his side.
"That was big," Lamar reveals.
Khloe, as you may recall, brought their divorce process to a grinding halt so that she could continue to have spousal visitations and spousal rights while he remained in the hospital.
Though he was grateful that Khloe and her family were so supportive during his recovery, he does admit that stress from his role in their family weighed heavily on him.
Shacking up with a Kardashian was a huge part of his life, and it had its drawbacks.
"It f–ked with my head, bro," he tells Hart.
"It made it tough to go outside," Lamar explains. "Every day, waking up, watching TMZ seeing if you’re going to be on it for the wrong reasons."
Some celebrities become consumed by media coverage of them. For someone married to a Kardashian, it"s almost mandatory.
"It’s not a comfortable feeling," Lamar understates.
In case you need a reminder, Lamar is 38 years old.
He was only 35 when this health crisis nearly claimed his life. A combination of his height, the stress that being a professional athlete can put on your body, and some inadvisable choices could have sent him to an early grave.
(Seriously, imagine if Khloe were a widow)
All of this talk about his brush with death is kind of a bummer, and it should be.
But can we just say what our favorite part of the interview was? It was when Lamar let Kevin Hart try on his two NBA championship rings.
Hart replies that the rings would fit better on his legs than on his fingers.
