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Lamar Odom Update: Mounting Hospital Bills Could Lead To Ugly Divorce Battle With Khloe Kardashian

By Nathan Francis
Published on: 09:18 PST, Dec 18, 2015

Lamar Odom has reportedly amassed millions of dollars in medical bills, with a long recovery still ahead and the possibility of an ugly divorce proceeding with Khloe Kardashian.

The former NBA player has been spending the last several weeks recovering after being found unresponsive in October at a brothel in Nevada. Odom is currently admitted at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where he has been receiving intensive and very costly therapy to recover from the effects of a drug overdose.

The situation has led to a great deal of uncertainty, with reports that he has still a very long way to go. Separate reports claim that Odom is having difficulty with memory and performing simple tasks. There is even speculation that he will never fully recover and may have to retire from the public eye.

“Lamar is still in really rough shape and may never be seen in public ever again,” a source told Hollywood Life this week. “The Kardashian family may make him take a leave of absence from public life forever almost like Rob Kardashian who hasn’t been seen for a long time in the public eye.”

Now, in addition to the health battles that Odom still faces, he will also have a monumental hospital bill to contend with. A report from Entertainment Tonight cited healthcare costs expert Shana Alex Charles, assistant professor at the Department of Health Science at California State University, Fullerton, who said the daily bill alone reaches about $50,000.

This came at the same time as a report claiming that Odom has already racked up $750,000 in medical bills. It could end up reaching much, much higher, a source claimed.

“By the end of the year, he’ll have easily made at least a $10 million dent in his $55 million fortune,” an insider told Radar Online. “There’s no end in sight and he’s completely unaware of what’s going on.”

The source added that Khloe Kardashian has been handling most of the expenses, as “money’s no object” to her. But the situation has Lamar’s camp very worried of what happens when Khloe stops paying the bills and leaves it up to Lamar to take care of himself.

And if there is a dispute down the line when the two end up finalizing their divorce, it could turn ugly. Ryan Stearns, an expert in family law, told Entertainment Tonight that Khloe may end up having to go to court to separate her debts from her husband’s.

“If I were representing Khloe, and [knew that] later she was going to divorce Lamar, I would argue that he’s going through this treatment as a consequence of his ‘whoring’ around,” Stearns also said, adding, “Namely, that he developed these conditions as a result of nothing to do with their marriage, entirely separate. Then it would be up to the court to determine whether the debts are going to be his separate responsibility.”

But though the divorce battle may loom, for now Lamar Odom is entirely focused on getting better. Last month, a source told People magazine that Odom suffered cognitive impairment that has made things like speech very difficult. There is still a decent chance at recovery, but it will take an intensive course of treatment and therapy, sources say.

And in the immediate term, sources say that Lamar Odom just wants to get better enough so he can spend Christmas with his children.

[Picture by Michael Buckner/Getty Images]

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