If you don’t know Lamar Odom from his career in the NBA, you may remember his high-profile four-year marriage to Khloe Kardashian. However, she wasn’t the only love in his life, and now Odom’s high school sweetheart, Liza Morales, is opening up about the heartbreaking moments in their relationship.
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As you know by now, Odom’s life will get a closer look in the upcoming Netflix docuseries, “Untold: The Death & Life of Lamar Odom.” Per the streamer’s official description, the project will “trace the life of Lamar Odom’s early days, his rise to NBA fame, marriage to Khloé Kardashian, and his infamous, near-fatal overdose in a Nevada brothel.” Morales is also set to speak out about the ups and downs that took place while she and Odom were together.
Prior to the show’s release, she recently spoke to PEOPLE, where she divulged that Odom proposed to her when she was 20 years old and that they were together when he was drafted into the NBA in 1999. While they were focused on building their rapidly evolving life, things unfortunately went from good to bad as the talented basketball star struggled with balancing his newfound fame, fortune, and access. This, in turn, led to issues between Odom and Morales.
“We were always kind of on and off, trying to figure things out,” she said, detailing how his multiple failed drug tests in 2001 led to him being suspended from games and placed a further strain on their relationship.
But by far, the straw that broke the camel’s back took place just five years later when their third child, Jayden, suddenly passed away. According to Morales, the child was just six months old when she found him dead in his sleep, having suffered from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) on June 25, 2006.
“I’m the one who found him. Even now, I can still see it. That never leaves you,” she said. “And so I just kept thinking like, ‘This can’t be my life. This can’t be happening to me.’”
Morales went on to say that the death and grief caused both her and Odom to react differently. Whereas she fell into a depression but decided to lean into her faith and seek therapy, the tragic ordeal only exacerbated Odom’s drug use.
“We reacted very, very differently to grief. But grief is something I’m going to carry with me for the rest of my life and Lamar too,” Morales said.
Not too long after Jayden’s death, the two of them decided to go their separate ways. However, Morales and their two previous kids are on somewhat good terms with him nowadays, with her sharing that they’ve learned to forgive Odom for his hardships with drug abuse and are ultimately choosing to move forward with peace.
“We’ve come a long way. We’re not best friends, but we’re in a good place,” she said.
“Untold: The Death & Life of Lamar Odom” hits Netflix on March 31.
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