Khloé Kardashian has had no shortage of challenges in her life, and she is crediting Lamar Odom‘s near-fatal overdose with giving her the tools to properly care for Tristan Thompson‘s younger brother.
On the most recent episode of The Kardashians, titled “A Step in the Right Direction,” Amari Thompson, 17, makes his television debut. As of this moment in the show, Tristan and Amari are living with Khloé, and have been since the NBA player’s roof collapsed and his mother died unexpectedly.
“Amari has epilepsy and his form of epilepsy is LGS. It’s one of the most severe types of epilepsy,” Khloé explains in a confessional. “There’s no playbook. There’s no rulebook. We don’t know what the hell we’re doing. And I say ‘we’ because I am on all of his medical stuff for Amari.”
While the Good American founder admits to feeling “overwhelmed” with her newfound responsibilities, she still wants to “help in any way” she can — especially since she understands the grief process when one loses a parent.
“With my dad, when he died, I didn’t think straight for three years minimum,” she says. “I just remember finally seeing light at the end of the tunnel three years later so I can’t imagine losing my mom and then having the responsibility of taking care of anyone. Because you barely want to take care of yourself — at least, I did. You just want to be depressed and you have every right to be. I’ll always be there. It’s just the right thing to do.”
Helping her ex-boyfriend care for his little brother, however, is reminding her of Lamar’s overdose in 2015. The ex-NBA player later revealed that he suffered 12 strokes and six heart attacks while he was in a coma.
“I don’t know if this sounds really dark and I don’t know if anyone would understand this, so I’m gonna say it,” Khloé begins. “But I feel like I’m equipped with the tools because of what I went through with Lamar, who couldn’t walk, who was bedridden, who couldn’t speak for months.”
The reality star further compares Lamar’s situation to Amari’s during an emotional conversation with Tristan.
“With my ex-husband, when he was in his coma, some of the doctors were like, ‘He can’t hear. He’s brain damaged.’ I would play music that I knew he liked and I would just always talk to him,” she recalls. “And then when he was able to talk, he would say, ‘I heard everything you would say. I would try to talk to you.’ So, who knows how much Amari knows?”
When a producer tells the star from off-camera that “God gives the most beautiful people the most challenges,” she had the most Khloé response you could expect.
“Well, I need to talk to him about that,” she quips. “I think I’m at capacity.”
New episodes of The Kardashians air every Thursday on Hulu.