LeBron James has shouting match with unmasked “Courtside Karen” (VIDEO)
They’re calling her “Courtside Karen.”
During the fourth quarter of the Los Angeles Lakers’ win over the Atlanta Hawks on Monday, it began to get heated between LeBron James and some fans, who were sitting courtside at State Farm Arena in Atlanta.
— Rob Perez (@WorldWideWob) February 2, 2021
LeBron getting into it with the courtside fans in Atlanta 😂 pic.twitter.com/rOD7oZNozm
— Dime (@DimeUPROXX) February 2, 2021
Same energy from Courtside Karen. 🤣 pic.twitter.com/UurTIALjU6
— Monkey Knife Fight 🐵🔪👊💰 (@mkf) February 2, 2021
A husband and wife, later identified as Chris and Juliana Carlos by ESPN, along with two other fans, were ejected from the building. Juliana was caught by the TV cameras yelling and pointing at LeBron with her mask down.
LeBron later took to Twitter and dubbed the fan yelling at him “Courtside Karen.”
Courtside Karen was MAD MAD!! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
— LeBron James (@KingJames) February 2, 2021
When she was leaving the arena, Juliana took to Instagram to share her side of the story in an expletive-filled video.
Woman says she got kicked out of game for telling LeBron James she was going to “fuck him up” after LeBron stared down her husband pic.twitter.com/rcna7q25Dc
— gifdsports (@gifdsports) February 2, 2021
“Anyway, I’m minding my own business, drinking my [beverage], having fun. All of the sudden, LeBron says something to my husband, and I see this and I stand up. And I go, ‘Don’t f—ing talk to my husband.’ And he looks at me and he goes, ‘Sit the f— down, b—-.’ And I go, ‘Don’t f—ing call me a b—-. You sit the f— down. Get the f— out of here. Don’t f—ing talk to my husband like that.'”
After the game, LeBron said that he was happy to see fans back in the stands and enjoys his interaction with them.
"At the end of the day, I'm happy fans are back in the building. … I miss that interaction. … We as players need that interaction."
LeBron on his interaction with spectators in Atlanta on Monday: pic.twitter.com/spWDITZqkl
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) February 2, 2021
“At the end of the day, I’m happy fans are back in the building. I miss that interaction,” LeBron told reporters. “There was a back-and-forth between two grown men … He said his piece, I said my piece. Then someone else jumped into it and said their piece.”
“I didn’t think they should have been kicked out. But they might have had a couple of drinks, maybe and they could have probably kept it going. It wouldn’t have been about the game anymore… The referees did what they had to do.”
While the 16-time All-star took the interaction in stride, his coach highlighted the problems that came from the interaction during a pandemic.
“It certainly exposed something with regard to having fans in the pandemic,” Lakers coach Frank Vogel said. “You obviously can’t have fans taking their masks down and shouting at our players with the virus out there during these times.”
LeBron’s star teammate Anthony Davis echoed those sentiments.
“With COVID going on, we obviously can’t have that,” Davis said. “We want to make sure we all can be safe.”
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