Now breathing on his own, former NBA star Lamar Odom has been taken from Las Vegas to Los Angeles to continue his recovery.
ESPN, citing sources, said Odom was taken by medical helicopter to a Los Angeles hospital Monday night.
Former college coach Jim Harrick said on CNN’s “New Day” that the 35-year-old athlete has made “a little bit of progress” and has told his estranged wife, Khloe Kardashian, “I love you.”
Odom was hospitalized last week after he was found unconscious at the Love Ranch, a brothel in Nevada where he had been holed up for several days.
What happened?
Little is known about what left him unresponsive at thebrothel. Love Ranch owner Dennis Hof recently told CNN that Odom was “in a good frame of mind” when he was taken to the brothel, and that he ate and slept well there.
“He picked a couple of girls, and he had the time of his life,” Hof said.
Opinion: What happened to Odom?
In three days at the brothel, Odom spent $75,000, which guaranteed two women would “take care of any of his needs,” Hof told CNN’s sister network HLN.
Employees told 911 dispatchers that Odom used cocaine on Saturday — his first day at the brothel — though Hof insisted Saturday that any drug use happened when Odom was partying early that morning in Las Vegas but before he’d arrived at the Love Ranch.
“I’m going to protect my business, and I’m not going to let the world say that Lamar was doing a lot of drugs in my place,” he told CNN’s Michael Smerconish, insisting his brothel has “zero tolerance” for illicit drugs. “Because it makes him look bad, and he wasn’t doing that.”
A woman said she also saw Odom take 10 herbal supplement tablets over three days.
The brothel’s employees said when they found him, Odom was lying in bed on his side with a pinkish fluid coming from his mouth and nose.
