By now, everyone has heard the recent news about NBA star, and ex-husband of Khloe Kardashian, Lamar Odom. Odom was found unconscious at a brothel in Nevada 3 days after checking in. Very little information has been released about what led him there, but it is well known that Odom has suffered from addiction problems throughout his life. The media has been covering the story heavily, but the angle of the coverage is beginning to take away from the actual problem. Instead, it has changed the focus of the story to how this event has affected people close to Lamar, particularly the Kardashian family. It is expected that pop culture sites such as E! would cover the story essentially from the Kardashians perspective, however, there is a larger issue at hand.
The media is continuously mentioning things like how Khloe Kardashian is inconsolable and how Kim had to leave the hospital to get to a doctors appointment. Lamar Odom is a person with or without the Kardashian family. Just because he was once involved with the family, that does not automatically make them a package deal. It is obviously the media’s job to cover events such as this, but in a situation like this there is a delicate way they have to go about it. Maybe the fact that the focus has been more on the Kardashians is the media’s way of protecting Lamar’s privacy as much as they can.
Social media users have blown up different platforms with posts about the situation as well. While most are heartfelt and meaningful, there of course is the smaller group of people who are choosing to make light of a not-at-all light situation.
(found on Twitter)
Between the media and people’s social media posts, the situation has been taken to an unnecessary level. Taking negative thoughts to social media will not change anything, and this is definitely not a situation that Hollywood needs to glamorize. What happened to Lamar is a real societal problem. However, while it is an extremely unfortunate circumstance, maybe the fact that this is being so heavily covered in the media will prevent future instances like this from happening.