In an episode of Celebrity Big Brother last February 7, 2022, Lamar Odom opened up that he is still heartbroken and grieving over his son Jayden Odom’s death.
The former NBA star welcomed Jayden on December 15, 2005, with his former girlfriend, Liza Morales. He was the youngest of their three children – Destiny (1998) and Lamar Jr. (2002). But on June 19, 2006, just six months after his birth, Jayden died tragically from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).
In a 2017 interview with NZ Herald, Lamar confessed that he was out partying the night before and received the call from his partner Liza early in the morning. She told him their son wasn’t waking up, and the ambulance was there to take him. When he arrived at the hospital, the doctors said he was not responding.
SIDS sounded almost made up to him because there were no explanations or answers to what had happened. His son was just gone, and he was supposed to accept it and, worse, live with it.
“2006 would’ve made him, right now, I think 15 or 14 years old. There’s just something I don’t think I’d ever get over,” Lamar said on the show. But he shared that his son coming into his dream lets him know that he’s just always there, not too far away from him. He also found solace in the thought of seeing him in the afterlife.
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Talking with Entertainment Tonight in 2019 after the release of his memoir Darkness to Light, Lamar revealed that Jayden’s death pushed his substance abuse issues over the edge. He had been doing drugs before, but his son’s unexpected death was a turning point.
He dug deep just to get through the hurt and the pain. In 2015, the athlete overdosed and almost died.
Six years after the incident, he did a documentary Lamar Odom: Reborn, where he shared more about his battle with addiction, PTSD, and his unprocessed feelings of grief.
Lamar said that at the time of his son’s death, he played for the Los Angeles Lakers, which was extremely hard for him. He described Jayden as this extra energetic, beautiful boy – a combination of his brother and sister – who would always stare at him whenever he walked into the room.
Lamar wished he would’ve had him in his life a little longer. He also admitted that, at the time, he still hadn’t sat down and processed his feelings about Jayden’s passing. He adds that it actually felt so crazy to him.
After losing Jayden, Lamar also lost his partner. According to Liza, Lamar’s grief ultimately pushed him into a life of partying and drugs. People started reaching out to her and talking to her regarding it, but she couldn’t worry about it. She just also wanted to focus on herself and grieve in her own way.
Lamar and Liza eventually split, and then he famously married Khloe Kardashian in 2009, a month into dating. The couple struggled to conceive and went through multiple controversies in their relationship before finally calling it quits in 2016. Lamar was single for a few years before getting engaged to fitness trainer Sabrina Parr in 2019. Unfortunately, the two called it quits a year later.
In honor of Jayden Odom’s death, Lamar Odom had him tattooed on his chest.
Watch how Lamar talked about dealing with the loss of his infant son Jayden to SIDS, and how he tried to move on afterward in the ESPN feature video below.
