Lamar Odom's Issues Edited Into 'Keeping Up With the Kardashians' Eps

It’s safe to assume that Lamar Odom’s drug problem was never intended to be a storyline in the eighth season of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, but after his “issues” became a tabloid fixture this summer, culminating in a DUI and a reported failed intervention and subsequent separation from Khloe, it would be impossible for it to be ignored on the show. That being said, given Lamar’s then-unexplained absences from filming, producers didn’t have much to work with, aside from some hushed phone calls.

A few months ago, when it was first reported that Lamar had a drug addiction (with tabloid reports vacillating between crack and Oxycontin) an episode of KUWK featured Lamar seemingly intoxicated. A few weeks later, the show highlighted a bizarre phone call between Khloe and Lamar, with Khloe’s interview segments explaining that he was going through a “difficult” and “emotional” time, without explicitly stating what that was.

Last night’s episode featured the same sort of weird phone calls (Lamar called all of her family members’ cell phones repeatedly), with cryptic commentary from Khloe and also her brother Rob. It was strange to see all of that spliced into an otherwise happy-go-lucky episode that featured a camping trip and the family’s disinterest in Kris Jenner’s talk show.

But at the time that the camping episode was filmed—around August 8 – 9, as reflected by their Instagram accounts—Khloe was in the midst of Lamar’s cheating scandal, which refused to go away, as more supposed mistresses stepped forward each week to speak to a tabloid. At that point, no one was aware of Lamar’s drug use, and wouldn’t be for another month when Khloe was on the cover of nearly ever tabloid.

The good news is that perhaps the Kardashians learned that they should just use the footage originally captured, or at least get better about hiding staged scenes filmed after the fact do as not to get caught as Kim infamously did after she filed for divorce from Kris Humphries. The bad news is that a young woman has to pretend she “can’t wait” to watch her marriage fall apart on television.