“He Changed My Life Forever”: Odell Beckham Jr. Talks About How Drake Was His Golden Goose

For years, Odell Beckham Jr. and Drake have been one of pop culture’s most visible athlete-artist friendships. This is partly due to them being two stars whose rise in the mid-2010s seemed to run on parallel tracks, and partly due to their countless Instagram posts of them partying together.

But their friendship arguably hit peak in 2024–25, when Drake faced the most brutal stretch of his career during the Kendrick Lamar diss-war. While other celebrity friends distanced themselves, Beckham never flinched. In fact, he was one of the very few who defended Drake publicly, privately, and emotionally. And recently, for the first time in depth, he’s explained why.

Appearing on The Pivot in October, Odell Beckham Jr. didn’t talk like a fan who grew up listening to a rapper he admired. He talked like someone who believes Drake fundamentally altered the trajectory of his life.

“I have nothing but love… he’s somebody who changed my life forever,” Beckham said, before explaining how Drake’s music, presence, and access transformed his world beyond football. In OBJ’s words, Drake was the golden goose, the person whose orbit opened doors that football alone never could.

“He could put me in a room with 200 of God’s greatest men creations … the tallest, the richest, the whatever that God got to offer… and I feel like I’m gonna stand for me,” Beckham added.

For a man of OBJ’s stature, who at one point in time was among the NFL’s poster boys, putting Drake on a pedestal shows two things: First, the Canadian rapper is truly a global icon and second, OBJ has zero ego about being the smaller man in stature here.

Odell Beckham Jr. hence explained that people often assume being around Drake could bruise a man’s pride, especially in his case, because suddenly, the Golden Goose isn’t OBJ, but Drake. But OBJ turns that idea upside down.

“My ego can never be touched because I know who I am… Now I’m Cordell’s brother. And I’m like, ‘Yeah, I am.’ I’m proud of my little bro. Why would I be like, ‘No, I’m OBJ’? That sh*t dumb,” he claims.

It’s why he brushed off people asking him to “get them to Drake.” He didn’t need the validation, especially when the relationship was familial.

But beneath the warmth, Odell Beckham Jr.’s comments also hinted at something deeper; the lifestyle that came with celebrity circles far exceeded what even an NFL star could sustain long-term.

A man who, in the same podcast, admitted that “$100 million isn’t really $100 million” was also a man who’d been living in rooms filled with billionaires, moguls, and megastars — spaces Drake hand-delivered him into.

So when OBJ says Drake changed his life, he’s also talking about exposure to wealth, to status, to opportunities, to expectations. The kind of lifestyle inflation that made even generational NFL earnings feel small in comparison.

But what’s heartening is how their relationship has stood the test of time.

Odell Beckham Jr. may now be unsigned, suspended, and fighting public criticism over money comments. Drake may still be recovering from the fallout of the Kendrick battle. But the bond between them remains one of the few things untouched — a rarity in celebrity culture where friendships are directly proportional to success.