Former Ole Miss star Marshall Henderson playing in Iraq

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Marshall Henderson has come a long way from his trash-talking days at Ole Miss. The former Rebel who became the player everyone loved to hate at the 2013 NCAA Tournament now finds himself in Baghdad, Iraq.

Henderson now plays in the Iraqi Super League. In an interview with Yahoo! Sports, Henderson says he rarely leaves his hotel room and deals with frequent power outages. He hears gunshots.

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Still, he's happy with his new life.

"It's not as bad as people make it seem back home," Henderson told Yahoo! in a Skype interview. "We just chill in the hotel. We don't go anywhere. We could go places and it would be safe. We wouldn't be worried about getting captured or anything. It's definitely better than I would've expected."

Henderson burst onto everyone's radar when he transferred to Ole Miss in 2012. He was brash and obnoxious, known for his antics both on and off the court, leading the Rebs to an automatic NCAA Tournament bid in 2013. Fully expecting to be drafted by the NBA after his senior year in 2014, Henderson was in for a surprise.

"I got a lot of good feedback about being drafted in the second round," Henderson said. "Then I got in trouble that summer and then it seemed like that was the end of [the NBA interest]. There was really nothing after that. I have to live with that."

That trouble was getting caught with marijuana and cocaine in the summer of 2013, leading him to be suspended for the first three games of his senior year.

"It's been my dream to play in the NBA," Henderson said. "To be close and to think that a couple of decisions that I made harmed me from getting the necessary looks this past summer, that hurt."

At that point, Henderson's reputation was already tarnished. He received a huge backlash after he tweeted that he was boycotting ESPN for showing football player Michael Sam's kiss with his boyfriend, calling the kiss "nasty" and "SICKENING," and said that children shouldn't see that.

After that, the only interest he got from the NBA was from the Rockets' and Kings' D-League teams. So he looked overseas.

Yahoo! Sports reports Henderson is now making at least $10,000 a month in Iraq.

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