‘The Circus’ follows Odom, Kardashians
News, celebrity media stake out spots around Las Vegas hospital
Outside the hospital where Lamar Odom lay in intensive care, a man in a Los Angeles Lakers jersey rolled down his window and yelled through the drizzle as he drove by. “Just let the man be in peace.” His outburst Friday was aimed at what locals have come to know as “The Circus,” the television cameras and news trucks that have wedged into every available space close to Sunrise Hospital, a few minutes’ drive from the Las Vegas Strip.
“It is like the world has descended on one street,” local construction worker Aaron Jones said as Saturday brought signs that Odom’s condition might be improving.
Ever since the former NBA forward was brought to the medical facility Tuesday after being found unresponsive in a Nevada brothel, the area has seen a mass influx of news media and an occasional handful of inquisitive bystanders.
Earlier in the week, one truck tried to set up operations in a corner of a Denny’s parking lot, while another crew had taken over a disused site across the street from the hospital. A budget hotel with a perfect sight line to the medical facility was offered hundreds of dollars by an entertainment outlet to station a crew in its parking area.
Reporters were camped out through the night, with nothing much to tell, but no shortage of people to tell it to.
The Odom situation is one of those moments in which the public’s thirst for information and the methods by which it is obtained create an uneasy mix.
“For the last few days, a lot people around here were hoping all the trucks and everything would leave,” said Erica Ramos, 26. “But then you’re kind of conflicted. If they leave, it might mean he is dead.”
Odom is a two-time NBA champion and won the league’s 2010-11 sixth man of the year award, yet the majority of the media have come from the entertainment world, with Odom married to Khloe Karsdashian, who, along with oth- er members of reality TV’s first family, were at the hospital.
One TV reporter quizzed a man who had left the hospital after visiting Odom earlier in the week about how many members of the Kardashians had been in the room with the former basketball player. Afterward, the reporter turned to colleagues to ask who the interviewee had been. It was Rev. Jesse Jackson.