Highs and lows. Former basketball player Lamar Odom’s passionate romances are integral to his life story, from his whirlwind marriage to Khloé Kardashian to his in-case-you-missed-it moment with Taraji P. Henson.
Odom, who was born in Queens, New York, first dated one of his teenage sweethearts, Liza Morales, for over 10 years. The pair’s daughter, Destiny, was born in 1998 while their son, Lamar Jr., in 2002. They became engaged in 2000, but never married.
In 2006, their relationship fell apart after their infant son, Jayden, passed away at 6 months old to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Morales told Page Six in March 2021 that their infant son’s death was the straw that broke the camel’s back in their relationship as Odom descended into drug use and partying as a way of grieving. “I realized I lost Lamar when our son Jayden passed away,” she told the outlet. “We grieved so differently.”
The exes stayed relatively friendly after going their separate ways — until July 2021 when the Basketball Wives alum sued the former Los Angeles Lakers player, claiming he allegedly stopped honoring a 2015 child support agreement for their two kids. Six months later, Morales announced that she was writing a memoir, Cutting Trauma Ties, telling Page Six how she and her family “dealt with [Odom’s] addiction privately for years.”
Following his 10-year relationship with Morales, Odom moved on to a brief romance with Henson in 2009. Speaking with TV One’s Uncensored in 2019, the former NBA player said he “learned a lot” from the Empire star and called it the “most significant relationship” he had “with a Black woman.”
He added: “She gave me inspiration. A Black woman, working like that, that’s just as good at her craft that I am in my craft.”
Their love didn’t last too long, however, as the Celebrity Big Brother star met Kardashian shortly thereafter. The pair famously tied the knot in September 2009 after a month of dating.
The former couple, whose Keeping Up With the Kardashians spinoff series Khloé & Lamar only lasted two seasons, appeared happy onscreen but were privately dealing with Odom’s infidelity and cocaine use.
Kardashian eventually filed for divorce in December 2013 after trying to help her then-husband of four years get better. “She flip-flopped several times,” a source told Us Weekly several months before the Good American founder’s filing. “But she can’t imagine having kids with someone who refuses to seek help for his disease.”
Two years later, however, Odom suffered a near-fatal overdose in Las Vegas, causing the Kardashians star to rush to the hospital to be by his side.
The California native withdrew her pending divorce petition and later revealed that the decision was made so she could make medical decisions on Odom’s behalf. Although fans wondered if the former lovebirds were rekindling their romance after they were photographed together at Kanye West’s Life of Pablo listening party at Madison Square Garden in February 2016, the divorce was finalized by December of that year.
Odom went on to date fitness influencer Sabrina Parr, and the two went public with their relationship in August 2019. Speaking in a joint interview with Dish Nation three months later, Parr noted that she loved Odom despite his troubled past.
“You have to meet people where they are,” she stated. “He was never in a position to be someone’s husband, you know? He was sick, he needed to heal, he needed to grieve. He experienced a lot of losses. And he never had time to go through that.”
Shortly after the interview, the former couple announced their engagement — and a year later, their wedding date. While the two were set to be wed in November 2021, they called it quits before they could walk down the aisle. Parr wrote via Instagram at the time that Odom had some things he had to “work through alone.”
Keep scrolling to see Odom’s complete dating history:
