Most of us don’t learn about unfamiliar institutions during ordinary moments. We learn about them during extraordinary ones.
For many people, commercial aviation becomes interesting after a plane crash. Nuclear energy becomes a topic of conversation after an accident at a power plant. Increasingly, artificial intelligence enters the public conversation through stories about deepfakes or concerns about losing jobs.
In October 2015, former NBA star Lamar Odom was found unconscious inside the Love Ranch, one of several licensed Nevada brothels owned by the late Dennis Hof. Odom was married to Khloé Kardashian at the time, and the story quickly became international news.
More than a decade later, the story continues to attract attention. In March 2026, Netflix released Untold: The Death & Life of Lamar Odom, a documentary examining Odom’s life and the events surrounding his near-fatal overdose at the Love Ranch.
After the Odom story broke in 2015, news organizations found themselves explaining Nevada’s legal brothel industry to readers who knew very little about it. The Associated Press explained Nevada’s county-by-county brothel laws. TIME examined the industry’s history and legal framework. CNN answered questions that had little to do with Lamar Odom himself.
The week Lamar Odom was hospitalized produced the highest search interest for the term “Nevada brothel” since Google began collecting the data in 2004. Search data obviously can’t tell us what people believed after reading those stories, but it does tell us this: people who may never have given Nevada’s legal brothel industry much thought suddenly wanted to learn more about it.
At the time, I had already spent several years working in Nevada’s licensed brothel industry, and I found myself wondering how the industry would be portrayed now that the story had become international news. I was concerned about whether the public’s first real introduction to these unique and enigmatic businesses might be shaped by a single extraordinary event.
The day before the story became public, a public relations representative called me after a major entertainment news outlet contacted him asking whether the incident had occurred at the brothel where I was working. It hadn’t.
“This is it,” the representative said.
“Dennis Hof is done.”
I remember answering, “Let’s see what he does.”
At that point, nobody knew exactly what had happened. Law enforcement was still investigating. Nobody knew whether the brothel had done anything wrong or what the long-term impact on Nevada’s legal brothel industry might be.
What interested me was how Dennis Hof would handle the decision. From a communications perspective, he had two primary choices. He could remain silent and allow others to shape the public narrative while the investigation continued, or he could speak for himself, knowing that every interview carried risk. Neither option was obviously correct. Given Dennis’s reputation and long history of embracing media attention, I suspected he would speak.
As the story unfolded, representatives for Khloé Kardashian reportedly asked Dennis to stop speaking publicly while Lamar Odom remained hospitalized. He refused. At the time, I wasn’t sure I agreed with that decision. In retrospect, while I understand what a difficult decision it was, I believe it was the right one.
I want to be careful here. This isn’t an endorsement of Dennis Hof or every decision he made throughout his career. Dennis was a complicated individual, and there are plenty of decisions he made that I wouldn’t defend. This decision is different, particularly in retrospect.
Dennis made a gamble. He believed that if he remained silent, someone else would define not only what had happened at the Love Ranch, but what Nevada’s legal brothel industry represented. Looking back, I believe the potential reward justified the risk.
The investigation ultimately produced no criminal charges related to the Love Ranch. The business remained open. Customers continued to visit. I suspect the publicity may even have increased awareness of Nevada’s legal brothel industry. Taken together, that’s why I believe he made the right decision.
Watching Dennis navigate the Lamar Odom crisis left a lasting impression on me. Shortly thereafter, I picked up the phone and called him. Within a week of our first conversation, I joined his staff.
Working alongside Dennis didn’t change what I thought about Nevada’s legal brothel industry. It changed the way I think about navigating communications.
The biggest communications mistake someone can make during a crisis involving an unfamiliar institution is assuming the audience understands that institution as well as the people inside it do. Most readers had never visited a licensed Nevada brothel. They had no way of knowing what was ordinary, what was unusual, what happened every day and what almost never happened. For many of them, the Lamar Odom story became their introduction to the industry.
A plane crash shouldn’t become someone’s complete understanding of commercial aviation. A reactor malfunction shouldn’t become someone’s complete understanding of nuclear energy. A celebrity deepfake shouldn’t become someone’s complete understanding of artificial intelligence. Yet that’s often how public understanding begins.
Extraordinary events don’t just shape public understanding. For many people, they become it.
Featured photo: January 28, 2007, photo by Michael Sandoval
Leave a Reply