The Untold Truth Of LeBron James
LeBron James is no stranger to basketball fans, and his stats speak for themselves. King James, as he's been nicknamed, can boast several NBA championships, while playing with the Miami Heat (in 2012 and again in 2013), the Cleveland Cavaliers (2016), and the Los Angeles Lakers (2020). In 2023, he made NBA history by breaking the scoring record that had stood for 39 years. Outside the NBA, James also distinguished himself as a member of the U.S. men's Olympic basketball team, winning bronze at the 2004 games in Athens, and then winning the gold medal, twice, in 2008 in Beijing and again in London in 2012.
His accomplishments on the court are more than enough to cement his status as one of the all-time greats, yet his achievements as an athlete represent just a fraction of the cultural impact he's had, on a scale far beyond sports. For example, he's become a major player in Hollywood, both behind the camera and onscreen, headlining the big-budget sequel "Space Jam: A New Legacy" (sharing the screen with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck), and a supporting role in Amy Schumer's cinematic debut, "Trainwreck." James is also the author of several books, including his memoir, "Shooting Stars" (co-authored by journalist Buzz Bissinger), and the children's books "I Promise," and "We Are Family."
Yet that's really just scratching the surface. To find out even more, read on to discover the untold truth of LeBron James.
How a broken wrist led him to the NBA
At the age of 17, LeBron James was already a basketball phenomenon, considered to be America's top high school player while under close scrutiny from the numerous NBA teams that considered him a hot prospect. Disaster struck in June 2002 while James was competing in a game held in Chicago. A botched attempt at a dunk landed him flat on his back. As James attempted to break his fall with his hand, opposing player C.J. Walleck inadvertently undercut James as he fell, causing him to break his wrist. At the time, it was reported he'd be sidelined for six to eight weeks while his wrist healed.
James was also a top high school football player, excelling at that sport just as he had at basketball. In fact, James — who then weighed 232 pounds and had reached a height of six-foot-eight — was considered the No. 1 high school football player in his home state of Ohio. At the time he broke his wrist, James had already been receiving offers from top colleges that viewed him as a football prospect. And while James displayed insane talent in both sports, it was football where he really envisioned his future.
As it turned out, James' injured wrist kept him sidelined from football during his senior year at high school; once he'd healed, James shifted his focus entirely to basketball, and the NFL's loss was the NBA's gain.
He married his high school sweetheart
LeBron James met his future wife Savannah Brinson when she was 16, and he was a year older, while both were attending different high schools. As she told Cleveland Magazine, a mutual friend told her that James asked for her number. "I'm like, 'Um, nope. I'll take his number,'" she recalled, admitting she had no idea he was America's No. 1 high school basketball player. "One day I'm sitting around — I was probably bored or something — and I'm like, 'Oh, I forgot! I have this number for this guy that I can call. He seemed interested, so let's see.'"
The couple had been together for well over a decade — and had already welcomed two of their three kids — when they tied the knot in 2013. A decade later, James paid tribute to his wife during the 2023 ESPYs while accepting an award. "If any of y'all know her — I know that there's a few people in here that know her — you know she doesn't ever do s**t like this, ever," James said, reported People Magazine. "And the fact that I'm loving it that y'all get to see the queen that I live with every day."
As James noted, his wife has developed a reputation for eschewing the spotlight. "When you want me to be on a TV show or walk the red carpet or something, I definitely get a little bit clammy," she said. "That's a bit out of my comfort zone."
His son is also a basketball phenom
LeBron James was just 19 years old, starting off his rookie NBA season with the Cleveland Cavaliers, when his high school sweetheart, Savannah Brinson, became pregnant. In October 2004, the couple welcomed son LeBron James Jr., a.k.a. Bronny, the first of their three children. As he came of age, it became increasingly evident that Bronny had inherited his father's athleticism and skills at basketball. At a height of 6-foot-3 and weighing 180 pounds, Bronny is smaller than his famous father but had piqued the interest of several top colleges that viewed him as an elite prospect (as a high school player, he was ranked 28th nationally). In May 2023, he revealed he'd be attending USC and playing for the Trojans.
His dad has admitted he's hopeful that one day he and Bronny can play together in the NBA. "I need to be on the floor with my boy, I got to be on the floor with Bronny," James told ESPN. "Either in the same uniform or a matchup against him ... But I would love to do the whole Ken Griffey Sr. and Jr. thing. That would be ideal for sure."
Bronny's road to the NBA, however, came into question in July 2023 when he suffered cardiac arrest during a Trojans practice; as of July 26, 2023, he'd been released from the ICU and was reported to be in stable condition.
He's part owner of an iconic baseball team
In 2021, LeBron James added another entry to his already-lengthy resume: team owner. According to the New York Times, he was part of an ownership group, Fenway Sports Group, that purchased the Boston Red Sox, which made him a partial owner of the Major League Baseball team. James' ownership stake was significant in that there are no Black majority owners in the league; in fact the Boston Globe pointed out that James and business partner Maverick Carter (who was also part of the group) were the first Black investors in Fenway Sports Group.
James' ownership stake in the team, noted his agent, Rich Paul, was a watershed moment for baseball that had been a long time coming. "It's breaking down the barriers," Paul told CNBC. "You're talking about a game that was once limited. Jackie Robinson and Roberto Clemente — guys like that people didn't even want to play the game. The Negros had to have their own league to us now owning and representing in that business sector. It's a testament to us continuing to evolve and not being complacent." Added Paul: "He's extremely serious about sports ownership."
Despite owning the Boston's MLB team, James offered a brutally blunt assessment of fans of the city's NBA franchise when he was asked why he disliked playing the Celtics on their turf. "Because they're racist as f***," he said during an episode of "The Shop."
He's a media mogul
In 2007, LeBron James and business partner Maverick Carter founded Springhill Entertainment, a film and television production company. As the company grew from a modest startup to a Hollywood powerhouse, in 2020 James and Carter raised $100 million from various investors to combine the production company with their other companies into an all-in-one firm dubbed the SpringHill Company. By the following year, SpringHill was valued at $750 million.
Over the years, SpringHill has developed a solid track record of delivering high-quality, revenue-generating entertainment. Films produced by SpringHill include Adam Sandler's "Hustle," "House Party," and "Space Jam: A New Legacy," along with such television productions as HBO's "The Shop," Starz drama "Survivor's Remorse," and NBC game show "The Wall."
Clearly, SpringHill was founded to make money, but there's another agenda at play, one that's woven into the company's DNA. As James and Carter told Bloomberg, the company's goal is to promote diversity, both in front of and behind the camera, in order to provide content to audiences they feel have been historically underserved by TV and movies. "The SpringHill Company's purpose is to empower greatness in every individual," SpringHill CEO Carter said in a statement to the Los Angeles Times," discussing the company's partnership deal with Universal Pictures. "With Universal, we're aligned in making sure socially conscious and purposeful elements are felt in all of our stories, whether it's a drama, comedy, family, or even a horror film."
LeBron James has his own fashion line
Another area in which LeBron James has been making an impact is fashion, through his UNKNWN brand and retail outlets. James launched the brand in 2011, in partnership with two old childhood friends from Akron, Ohio, Frankie Walker and Jared Kanfer, with the first location opening in Aventura, Florida. In 2019, the trio opened a second location in Miami, with the store's launch coinciding with Miami Art Week. As Complex reported, the 10,000-square-foot retail space boasted some unusual features, including a mural wall featuring work from an ever-changing array of artists, an art installation using water, and, of course, a basketball court.
"I'm excited about this new space because every inch and every detail is dedicated to bringing people together," said James in a press release. "From the basketball court that will host community events to featuring custom collaborations and celebrating local art, this location is all about fusing fashion, sport, culture, and community. This innovative and engaging space takes not only the UNKNWN brand but also the brick-and-mortar retail concept, to a whole new level."
In 2022, UNKNWN came full circle with the launch of a location in Akron, where the three partners met as kids playing basketball. "I'm happy that we are able to make this happen," Kanfer told Akron's WKYC. "The idea started here. We've been in business for 10 years and we always wanted to come back to Akron. That was always our vision."
He's made big bucks in endorsement deals
Like most top athletes, LeBron James has signed on for big-bucks endorsement deals. In fact, companies have been lining up to shovel money at him since he was a teenager. "You know, Nike, and Adidas and Reebok and all the people fighting over me right now," James told CBS News back in 2003, when he was still a high school student, of the $30 million or so in endorsement deals he was preparing to sign.
Since then, James has locked into deals worth a lot more than that, including partnerships with Nike, Walmart, Beats headphones, GMC, AT&T, gaming company 2K, travel accessory and luggage brand Rimowa, Chase Bank, sports nutrition brand Ladder, shoe retailer Upper Deck, the Calm relaxation app, and Blaze Pizza.
Those deals brought in some serious dollars. James' deal with Nike nets him $32 million per year — a big jump from his first Nike deal, for which he was paid $90 million over a seven-year period. Meanwhile, when Beats was acquired by Apple in 2014, James wound up raking in $30 million due to his ownership stake. Meanwhile, the $1 million that he and Maverick Carter invested in Blaze Pizza back 2012 was estimated to have ballooned to $25 million in value just five years later. In 2012, James also embarked on a deal with Dunkin Donuts, signing on as a brand ambassador to introduce Dunkin and Baskin-Robbins to China, Taiwan, India and South Korea.
His dream is to play in the NFL at least once
When LeBron James ultimately chose basketball over football, it wasn't the clearcut decision it may have appeared to be. "Some people said I should just stick to basketball," James, then 15, told the Akron Beacon Journal in 2000 (as reported by SBNation). "But I like football. I like being with the guys on the team. It's fun." In fact, James told the New York Times in 2009, had he gone to college, he would have played both basketball and football, as he'd done in high school. "Scoring touchdowns was the best for me," James recalled. "I grew up playing football, and I always loved just going out and competing."
More than a decade later, having reached the absolute pinnacle of the NBA, James admitted he still harbored a desire to play in the NFL, at least once. "I wanna play one NFL game before it's over," James wrote on Twitter during a Q&A session with fans.
According to Green Bay Packers CEO (and former player) Mark Murphy, the idea of James in the NFL isn't a crazy one. Having seen James play in his high school days, Murphy compared the NBA superstar to such other legendary NFL receivers as James Lofton, Jerry Rice, and Steve Largent. "People laugh at me, but it's true," Murphy told ESPN of putting James in the same class as those NFL Hall of Famers. "The kid had everything you could want."
He's the NBA's first billionaire player
It's no secret that LeBron James is a wealthy man, yet it was still stunning when Forbes declared in 2022 that he was officially a billionaire. That placed him in rarified air, the first NBA player to attain that status while still playing in the league (Michael Jordan, the outlet pointed out, had also become a billionaire, but not until long after he'd retired from basketball).
There have been various factors that contributed to James hitting billionaire status. First off, there's the money he's made from playing basketball, with lifetime earnings (as of 2022) of just over $430 million, along with a $97-million contract extension that pushed his basketball earnings to more than $500 million. Then there are his various endorsements, which brought in more than $900 million in 2022, and the returns from his various investments. Add the extraordinary success of the SpringHill Company, with his stake estimated to be worth $300 million, while his ownership stake in the Boston Red Sox and British soccer club Liverpool FC (both through his investment in Fenway Sports Group) is worth an estimated $90 million.
Hitting the billion-dollar mark had been on his mind for some time. "It's my biggest milestone," James told GQ back in 2014. "Obviously. I want to maximize my business. And if I happen to get it, if I happen to be a billion-dollar athlete, ho. Hip hip hooray! Oh, my God, I'm gonna be excited."
He's a natural at acting
Like many athletes, LeBron James has played himself in films and TV series, having racked up nearly 30 screen credits along the way, appearing in an eclectic assortment of projects ranging from "SpongeBob SquarePants" to "Entourage" to "Space Jam: A New Legacy."
Arguably James' biggest and most revealing acting role came when he was cast — as usual, as himself — in the 2015 comedy "Trainwreck." In the film, James played matchmaker for his best friend, a sports surgeon played by "Saturday Night Live" alum Bill Hader, who falls for Amy Schumer's titular trainwreck. Usually, athletes portraying themselves are relegated to brief cameos while the actual actors do the heavy lifting; not so in "Trainwreck," with James earning rave reviews for a substantial supporting role as an endearingly quirky version of himself.
James wasn't intending to take on such a meaty role, assuming he'd be doing the typical cameo when he heard the pitch from Hader and director Judd Apatow. "They were like, 'You're going to play yourself.' I was like, 'Okay, I can do that easily.' I can just show up, 'Hey, I'm LeBron. I can play basketball. I can shoot some jumpers. I can dunk,'" James told Entertainment Tonight. "It was like, 'No, you're actually going to be Bill's best friend in the movie, and you're going to be a love doctor. I'm like, 'Oh, so that means I'm going to have lines? Like more than one per scene?'"
He bought a $37 million mansion — and then demolished it
When your net worth is estimated to be $1.2 billion, money is kind of no object. That was pretty much the case when LeBron James splurged on a massive Beverly Hills mansion back in 2020. As the Los Angeles Times reported, he shelled out $36.75 million for the 13,000-square-foot estate, sitting on more than two acres of prime L.A. real estate, and featuring panoramic views of the Hollywood hills and the Pacific Ocean. Boasting a pool and pool house, other amenities included a state-of-the-art home theater, tennis courts (plural), and seven fireplaces. The place even had a prestigious Hollywood pedigree; the previous owner was William Bell, creator of hit soap operas "Another World," "The Young and the Restless," and "The Bold and the Beautiful," and had once been owned by Howard Hughes, who reportedly set up then-girlfriend Katharine Hepburn there.
While it's not uncommon for celebrities to buy multimillion-dollar homes and then renovate them to their exacting specifications, James' next move was an unexpected one: he demolished it entirely, in order to build a brand-new one from the ground up.
Naturally, the news was met with a tsunami of wisecracks from wannabe comedians on social media. "Please pray for LeBron and family while they are displaced during this difficult time," noted one Instagram comment. "When I get tired, I'll sometimes switch the drapes. Lebron gets tired, the whole house is gone," quipped another.
The touching reason why he switched jersey numbers
When LeBron James first began playing for the Cleveland Cavaliers, his jersey was emblazoned with the number 23 throughout his seven-season stint with the team. When he left Cleveland to play for the Miami Heat, his number was changed to 6. When he returned to Cleveland, he reverted back to 23. When he jumped to the Los Angeles Lakers, he switched back to the 6 he'd used in Miami. After 2 Seasons in Los Angeles, however, James' number switched to 23.
There was a very compelling reason behind that last number change. In 2022, the NBA announced it was officially retiring the No. 6, for all teams in the league, in honor of the legendary Celtics star, who wore that number throughout his career. "Bill Russell's unparalleled success on the court and pioneering civil rights activism deserve to be honored in a unique and historic way," NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement to USA Today. "Permanently retiring his No. 6 across every NBA team ensures that Bill's transcendent career will always be recognized."
James' agent, Rich Paul, explained why his client felt it was important to switch back to No. 23. "It's LeBron's decision," Paul told ESPN. "He chose to out of respect for Bill Russell."
He opened an experimental school
In 2018, LeBron James demonstrated his philanthropy when he opened the I Promise School in his hometown of Akron, Ohio, funded through his LeBron James Family Foundation. The school targeted at-risk kids who were lagging behind their peers academically, a joint venture between his foundation and Akron Public Schools. "He's changing lives," Michele Campbell, executive director of the LeBron James Family Foundation, told WKYC, insisting James' commitment to his school would remain as strong as ever, despite the recent announcement he was leaving Cleveland to play for the Lakers. "It doesn't matter where he works, this work still continues," she added. "He made a promise. And he will always make good on that."
A year after the school opened, James told the New York Times he was thrilled with the progress. "These kids are doing an unbelievable job, better than we all expected," he said. "When we first started, people knew I was opening a school for kids. Now people are going to really understand the lack of education they had before they came to our school. People are going to finally understand what goes on behind our doors."
Out of everything he's accomplished in his career, James told USA Today that founding the school is at the very top of his achievements. "The basketball thing, I love it and I enjoy it," he explained, "but to give back and open up a school, that's something that will last way beyond my years."
He made NBA history as the all-time scoring leader
In February 2023, LeBron James sunk a basket that made history. During the Lakers matchup with the Oklahoma Thunder, James broke a record that had been in place for 39 years to become the NBA's all-time scoring leader when he scored his 38,388th career point. That beat a long-standing record established in 1984 by Lakers legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Abul-Jabbar was in the audience that night, and James paid tribute to the man whose record he'd just shattered. "To be able to be in the presence of such a legend as great as Kareem, it's very humbling. Please give a standing ovation to the 'Captain,' please," James told the crowd. "I would never, ever in a million years have dreamt this even better than what it is tonight."
Abdul-Jabbar later took to Substack to share his thoughts on James breaking his record. He also addressed the controversy that had erupted when James was asked by a reporter about his relationship with Abdul-Jabbar, and pointedly stated that the two had "no relationship. Abdul-Jabbar placed the blame for that on himself, admitting he'd not made himself approachable to younger players such as James. As he explained, basketball was the furthest thing from his mind in his retirement. "Bottom line about LeBron and me: LeBron makes me love the game again," he wrote. "And he makes me proud to be part of an ever-widening group of athletes who actively care about their community."