‘When I was 6, I was asked to go to the village and kill a lion’: When Joel Embiid fabricated a wild story to raise awareness about African stereotypes

Joel Embiid

Joel Embiid looks like he’d be the one NBA player who could hunt down a lion, and apparently according to him, he’s already done that, or has he?

The 76ers star had yet another disappointing end to his season this year. After finishing with the #4 seed in the East and a new superstar in James Harden, the Sixers looked like they finally had the pieces to contend and win a title.

After the Ben Simmons debacle, getting back Harden seemed to be a very valuable asset to add. Simmons had shown that he wasn’t compatible with this Sixers team after repeated playoff blunders and failures, and so the hope was that Harden would reinvigorate the Philly offense with his fiery game.

However, Harden couldn’t pull through in the playoffs, and Embiid’s offensive outbursts weren’t enough to carry the 76ers past the Miami Heat in the second round. Now, the same questions plague the 76ers front office that did last year. How do they build an adequate team around their franchise superstar in Embiid?

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Joel Embiid once faked a story about he killed a lion to prove he was a man

Embiid is currently one of the most dominant NBA players, finishing second in MVP voting two years in a row now to Nikola Jokic.

His talent is undeniable, but it’s his strength and energy that has made him such a physical and intimidating paint presence. In fact, Embiid has this killer instinct in him since he was a kid. Or, so he said.

The 76ers star appeared on the ‘Dan Patrick’ show once, and there, he described how he once slaughtered a lion as just a six year old kid in Cameroon.

“When I was six years old, I had to go into the jungle to kill the lion,” Embiid recalled. “That was a way for me to prove that I was a bad man. That was also a way for me to become a man. So I went into the jungle, I had a spear, and threw it at a lion when he fell asleep, and then I just came and killed him. Then I carried the lion on my back, back to the village, and when I got to the village, I proved that I was a man. I’ve been a man since I was six years old.”

However, the story was reportedly a hoax. Joel Embiid wanted to call out African stereotypes and prove that he could get away with saying just about anything as long as it fit the narrative.

“Americans don’t really have any idea what’s going on in the world, especially us Africans,” Embiid revealed to Adrian Wojnarowski on The Vertical Podcast. “When they think about Africans, they think about us running around with lions and tigers and all those other animals. When I got to Kansas I kind of used that to my advantage, talking about how I killed a lion and that’s how I became a man.”

“At six years old I had to go into the jungle and kill a lion and had to carry it on my back and carry it back to the village to show I’m a man. And they bought into it…I don’t know. It might be true or it might be false. I don’t know. But that’s the perception.”

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Post Edited By: Ashish Priyadarshi
Joel Embiid NBA Philadelphia 76ers

About the author

Ashish Priyadarshi

Ashish Priyadarshi is The SportsRush's content manager and editor. Ashish freelanced for 1 year in the NFL division before taking on an editorial role in the company. He then tacked on managing content while adding on a writing role in the NBA division. Ashish has been closely following the NFL and NBA since the 2012 season when the Patriots lost the Super Bowl and Derrick Rose was at the height of his powers. Since then, Ashish has focused on honing his knowledge for both leagues in, even writing crossover pieces. In his free time, Ashish is an avid basketball player, he loves to watch movies and TV shows, immersing himself in the cinematic world. Ashish studies computer science and data science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and would love to mesh his love for sports with his technical skills.

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