NBA Player Lamar Odom Calmly Destroys Paparazzi’s Gear on the Street

If you’ve ever questioned the wisdom of insuring your camera gear, witness the methodical fury of basketball star and Kardashian spouse Lamar Odom wrecking a photographer’s equipment.

The incident, as recorded and reported by bystanders, began Wednesday in Los Angeles when Odom was idling at a stop light. Several media photographers (paparazzi, if you want) approached his car and started asking about reports Odom had cheated on celebrity wife Khloe Kardashian.

Odom first tried deflecting the questions with iron-clad logic — “I would never cheat on my wife, that’s why I wear my wedding ring.” — then asked photographers to put down their cameras and “let me talk to you man-to-man.”

When that didn’t work, Odom got out of his car and launched into the slowest, calmest form of a smackdown you’ve ever seen.

Video and still images show the b-baller grabbing cameras, lenses and other gear (like a large wheeled camera gear case) from a  photographer’s car, throwing them in street, smacking another car with a piece of metal pipe and then throwing some of the gear in the trunk of his car before finally tossing it back in the street.

A still frame from the video shows a pricey DSLR flying out of a camera case and onto the road below
A still frame from the video shows a pricey DSLR flying out of a camera case and onto the road below

Response from photographer: “I was a big fan, but now I’m not.” And: “Blame it on Radar Online; don’t blame it on me.”

But the surreal highlight comes near the end, as Odom calmly and obligingly poses with a fan who wants to snap a selfie on her smartphone.

One photographer says he filed a police report for vandalism, but that’s it for any official response so far.

Unofficially, Kardashian explains on her Twitter feed that it’s all the photogs’ fault: “wow can’t believe a paparazzi snuck into our gated area and violated our private property!!!!”

(via New York Daily News, USA TODAY, and TMZ)


Update: The Los Angeles Times reports that Odom is currently being investigated for battery and grand theft in the aftermath of this incident.


Image credits: Video and still frame by Graeme Massie/Splash News/TMZ

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