The former Los Angeles Lakers player Lamar Odom reveals he believes he was spiked when he almost died at a brothel in Nevada, in a 2015 incident that left the two-time NBA champion battling for his life in a coma.
The situation took place one year after he retired from professional basketball; whilst he was in the middle of his divorce from Khloe Kardashian after six years of marriage, and one month of dating.
The star was found unconscious at the Love Ranch institution, a legal brothel based in the town of Crystal, and suffered kidney failure, a dozen strokes and multiple heart attacks before doctors managed to safe his life.
Hospitalized in October, he was only released in January and has since managed to make a full recovery but confronting his own issues with substance abuse, particularly cocaine addiction, describing himself as the “walking miracle” who had “cheated death”.
Yet one thing he maintains is he was spiked on that fateful October 13 night and that his medical emergency wasn’t caused by his own addictions, and he recently reaffirmed that believe as he approaches a decade on.
“I don’t know what they were able to slip into my drink or what,” Odom told the The Kyle and Jackie O Show. “I don’t really remember because I was in a coma. I remember being upset that I didn’t have any cocaine to take to the brothel.
“I had just signed the divorce papers and I thought I was just gonna go all the way in. [I was] having a drink and then waking up three days later with it all over the news.”
“When I woke up, I couldn’t walk or talk. So it took, you know, it took some months of rehabilitation and a lot of prayers, a lot of determination.”
Odom calls for drugs education
Upon confronting his own issues with drug addiction, the now 46-year-old has called for awareness about what the dangerous substances can actually do to a person both mentally and physically.
It’s currently thought 50 million Americans within the United States have a substance abuse disorder, with 13 million suffering from suicidal thoughts. Only nine percent ever seek treatment and recovery.
“It’s important for people to really understand,” Odom continued. “And educate themselves. You have nothing to do after you beat your death.”