Lamar Odom downplays Khloé Kardashian 'saving' his life after overdose, questions her claim that his father wanted to pull plug at hospital
Lamar Odom downplays Khloé Kardashian 'saving' his life after overdose, questions her claim that his father wanted to pull plug at hospital
Kathleen PerriconeTue, April 7, 2026 at 3:25 AM UTC
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Khloé Kardashian and Lamar Odom in 2026Credit: Netflix; NBC
Of all the shocking revelations that came out of Untold: The Death & Life of Lamar Odom, the NBA champion seems intent on clarifying Khloé Kardashian’s role in his recovery.
The Netflix documentary, which premiered on March 31, focuses on Odom’s 2015 near-fatal overdose at a Nevada brothel and the four months he spent in the hospital learning how to walk and talk again — during which time his estranged wife never left his side.
But Odom seemed to seriously downplay Kardashian’s efforts in a new interview on Today with Jenna & Sheinelle.
“She stood by your side, she saved your life,” Bush Hager tells Odom. “Do you feel that way?”
“In some ways,” replies Odom. “God saved my life. My lord saved my life, honestly.”
The hosts stayed on the touchy subject, reiterating that “Khloe stepped in… and stayed by your side,” despite already filing for divorce, as Odom recovered from the six heart attacks and 12 strokes he suffered while in a coma for three days.
“A lot of us were saying, ‘She rode hard for you,’” Jones tell him.
“Yeah, she took care of me,” admits Odom, “but God took care of me the most. What I came back from is like a medical miracle.”
And it almost didn’t happen. As Kardashian revealed in the documentary, when she arrived at the hospital in Nevada, Odon’s estranged father Joe was already there — and he was instructing doctors to pull the plug on his unconscious son.
“I assume, [he] thought he’s now the beneficiary to Lamar,” she opined in a confessional interview. “And Joe just said, ‘Don’t put him on life support. Turn those machines off.’”
Even more shocking, he agreed to stand down once Kardashian gave him $100 and a new pair of Nikes.
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“And Joe left and never came back,” she said.
Lamar Odom with his father Joe in 2008Credit: Noel Vasquez/FilmMagic
Odom, now 46, doesn’t believe that version of events.
“You know, I was knocked out and asleep at that time,” he said on Jenna & Sheinelle, while wearing a necklace featuring a photo of his late parents (mom Cathy Mercer succumbed to cancer when Lamar was 10; Joe died in 2021). “If you know Joe Odom, I don’t think that’s something he would ever come out of his mouth. He was my biggest fan. I don’t know where that got mistranslated.”
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As the documentary showed, after Odom was discharged from the hospital, Kardashian rented him a home near hers in Calabasas and even paid for him to have a caretaker and chef. But one day she stopped by and caught him smoking crack.
Lamar Odom and Khloé Kardashian in 2012Credit: Imeh Akpanudosen/Getty
“I just punched him in the face,” she confessed. “I just put my life on hold to f---ing take care of you… He was playing me so I can continue this lifestyle for him.”
Kardashian subsequently kicked him out of the home and told him, “I never want to speak to you again.”
And she didn’t for nearly a decade, until February 2025 when they reunited for Hulu’s The Kardashians. In the episode, Odom comes to his ex’s home to retrieve several keepsakes of his she had been hanging onto since their divorce.
“It was awkward, and it wasn’t really good for me,” he admitted on Jenna & Sheinelle, without going into further detail. “But once you’re family, you’re always family, so she ain’t going nowhere.”
But the relationship will never again be romantic, Odom added. “I will always have love for her, but being in love, no.”
on Entertainment Weekly
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
