Kansas City Chiefs RB Clyde Edwards-Helaire details struggles with PTSD largely stemming from 2018 shooting

Clyde Edwards-Helaire said he’s been dealing with PTSD from a shooting that happened in 2018 when he was at LSU. (Photo by David Eulitt/Getty Images)

Kansas City Chiefs running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire talked about his struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder Thursday after publicly revealing earlier in the week he suffers from PTSD.

Edwards posted to social media on July 29 that he’s had “many flare-ups” of PTSD over the past month. Thursday, he said a “majority” of his PTSD stems back to a self-defense shooting that took place in December 2018 when he was at LSU. He said conversations with his father, a former marine and police officer, have played a role in the way he handles it.

“It just takes the courage to talk about it and having PTSD and dealing with it, once people kind of bring it up, it’s not something that I always want to talk about because I never really know how my body will react or my mind,” Edwards-Helaire said Thursday. “It’s just something that I can’t really pinpoint or know exactly what’s going to happen. But just having that safe space and right now, within the past two years and actually being open with my dad — there were points that he told me things that I feel like he never told anybody, even guys that were part of his platoon, guys he was deployed with probably haven’t heard the stories or known exactly what he’s going through, but they haven’t talked about it.”

On Dec. 22, 2018, Edwards-Helaire and LSU teammate Jared Small, whom Edwards-Helaire said was his best friend, were selling electronics to a man when he pulled a gun on them and tried to rob them. One of the players shot and killed the man, 18-year-old Kobe Johnson, in self-defense.

Neither player was charged after the incident, and Edwards-Helaire played in the Fiesta Bowl less than two weeks later. Sixteen months later, he was drafted by the Chiefs in the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft.

Clyde Edwards-Helaire opened up about dealing with PTSD.

He told @Leabonics that “you feel like your whole life is, football player or everything is geared towards this, but it’s so much more… there’s so many things that come with a person.” Watch the full presser below ⬇️… pic.twitter.com/qdYtuVF5bW

— Sports Radio 810 WHB (@SportsRadio810) August 1, 2024

In his comments Thursday, Edwards-Helaire said he’s been admitted to the hospital before because he can’t stop throwing up. He has missed some Chiefs practices in recent seasons for what the team has described as an illness. His time at the podium was the first time he’s spoken in-depth about his struggles over the past six years.

“I would say with that happening at such a young age, the first couple years you just try to block everything out and at some point I’m going to get over it, and just start to realize that just doesn’t happen,” Edwards-Helaire said. “You get older and you realize that no matter the age, no matter the person, no matter the situation, everyone needs help at some point. And it’s just being able to kind of step up and say this is the help I need and this is what I need to ask for.”