Lamar Odom isn’t crawling up from rock bottom any time soon.
The ex-NBA player most famous for marrying a Kardashian—Khloé, to be exact—was reportedly removed from a Delta flight Monday night. Odom, who has fought an extended battle against substance abuse, was spotted pounding down beers and whisky at LAX before boarding his NYC-bound red-eye. Unfortunately, the visibly inebriated Odom couldn’t even make it to the bathroom, and threw up in the airplane’s galley before returning to his seat in vomit-stained clothes. Flight attendants escorted him off the plane, only for the basketball player to reappear ten minutes later. After Odom rushed to the bathroom for a second time, he was permanently removed from the plane.
This alarming report comes on the heels of recent relapse rumors. After Odom moved out of the Calabasas home that his soon-to-be ex-wife had set him up in, claims surfaced that Khloé was refusing to pay rent because a crack pipe had been discovered on the $25,000-a-month property. People countered the allegations, reporting that Odom’s decision to get out of town was a personal choice: “They are divorcing and now that Lamar is doing better, he doesn’t feel the need to live next door to Khloé.”
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It’s no secret that Kardashian has been taking care of her estranged husband for almost a year now, ever since Odom was found unconscious at the Love Ranch South brothel outside of Las Vegas. The former Mrs. Odom first separated from her husband in 2013, after an incoherent video showed a drugged-out Odom boasting about his various mistresses. After a brief stint with the New York Knicks in 2014, Odom was passed over at the end of the season due to a lack of professionalism. Khloé, who didn’t have the heart to kick Odom to the curb, staged an intervention that resulted in a brief rehab stay. A few months later, Khloé made good on her various ultimatums, citing “irreconcilable differences” in a fresh divorce filing.
But that all changed when Odom was rushed to the hospital, where cocaine and herbal supplements were found in his system, along with alleged track marks on his skin. At her husband’s bedside, Kardashian was “told that he had four hours to live and make your peace with this, and I was not going to accept that answer.” She halted divorce proceedings and nursed Odom through private rehabilitation, insisting that, “I still believe in my vows of being there for him.”
Kardashian’s decision to end her romantic relationship with Odom didn’t stop her from aiding his recovery in any way possible. Unfortunately, it seems that Odom’s addiction might be too much for one woman—and her unfathomably rich, powerful, and famous family—to take on.
Lamar’s father, Joe Odom, was a heroin addict; his son has described him as “absent ALL of my life due to his own demons.” Kardashian stuck with her husband through DUIs, rehab, unemployment, and even infidelity—not bad for a couple that famously got married after only one month of dating. Now that their divorce is finally back on track, it’s safe to say that Lamar Odom’s binges are no longer Khloé Kardashian’s responsibility.
Of course the internet, that universal moral compass and ethical arbiter, would beg to differ.
Ever since news broke that Odom was caught in the Calabasas mansion with the crack pipe, Kardashian has inexplicably been accused of facilitating her ex’s relapse. When one Twitter troll chastised her for “running the streets” (?) instead of “helping her husband,” Kardashian removed her metaphorical earrings and tore @Tamantha_5 a new one, tweeting: “stay in your fucking lane little girl. You know nothing about anything. You’re a sheep herded by society.”
Of course, this tweet only confirms what we already knew—Khloé Kardashian aka “the one with the good personality” is an unapologetic badass who doesn’t sweat the haters. Kardashian, who literally wrote the book on looking hot in the face of adversity, seems pretty unfazed. Still, it’s interesting that the majority of misguided advice and concern floating around the Twittersphere is reserved for famous mothers and wives. From Kristin Cavallari’s “malnourished” son to Ciara’s “bad baby mama” status, everyone seems to have an opinion on how women ought to behave, and the unearned confidence to share their opinions with the world. While it’s easy to confuse Kardashian’s fabricated air of transparency with actual reality, the only people who really know what’s going on with Khloé and Lamar are Khloé and Lamar. So until you’re in the position of picking up your unconscious hubby from the Love Ranch, you should probably reserve your social media judgement for someone who really deserves it, like Donald Trump or Chris Brown. #LeaveKhloéAlone
