Lamar Odom wasn’t even old enough to drink or gamble when he bought his first prostitue.
The basketballer was 16 years old and on track to becoming the biggest high school basketball star in New York City when he and his teammates decided to sleep with prostitues.
Khloe Kardashian’s ex-husband has spoken openly about his penchant for prostitutes and almost died in 2015 when her overdosed in a brothel.
But the habit began years before that.
Lamar details his first dalliance in his autobiography Darkness to Light: A Memoir.
He was in Las Vegas – where the drinking and gambling age is 21 – to play in the Adidas Big Time Tournament alongside other high school stars from across the country.
His pal Kobe Bryant, who also went on to be a huge star and his LA Lakers teammate, was with him too.
But when it came to purchasing time with a lady of the night, he decided against it.
Lamar wrote: “It just felt like opportunity was in the air all around us. But mostly, there were women. We weren’t old enough to gamble but that hardly mattered. We wanted women.
“So, we got a bright idea: let’s buy some p***y. I had a few hundred dollars in my pocket that Gary [Charles – the coach] had given me for this trip, and it was itching to be spent. So Kobe, Greg [Nunn], Tony Lee (a guard from Boston), and I headed out to the Strip.
“There were mostly young white girls walking up and down the Strip, and because none of us had ever been with a white girl, we pretty much had our mission for the night.”
He added: “Since we were black and mostly over six feet six, we told every girl who would listen that we were in the NBA. But Kobe was a little bit different from us.
“He came from the pristine suburbs of Philadelphia’s wealthy Main Line neighbourhood and wasn’t quite as street-smart as a bunch of kids from Queens. He was pragmatic and careful. He would think things out and worry about the consequences.
“He was always so aware. We just did things without thinking. Halfway through our pursuit, Kobe wasn’t feeling it and decided to go back to his room.”
LAMAR ODOM
The basketball player, who was married to Keeping Up With The Kardashians star Khloe from 2009 to 2016, has publicly struggled with drug addiction and left her devastated by cheating on her multiple times.
Khloe and Lamar tied the knot just 30 days after they first met.
It seemed like a fairytale, but she’s since admitted that the relationship wasn’t as perfect as it seemed.
Khloe admitted faking trying to get pregnant because she felt it wasn’t right to add a child into the mix, and Lamar had a serious drug problem.
It was so bad that he almost died in 2015 when he overdosed on substances, including cocaine and herbal viagra, at a brothel in Nevada.