Not every Michael Jordan story is going to paint His Airness in the best light. Actor Catfish Jean has an extremely wild tale of meeting the six-time NBA Champion, and by the end of it, he would swear off Jordan sneakers forever.
Advertisement
The Road House star shared this saga during his recent appearance on the Scorer’s Society podcast. The show host asked Jean about his MJ story, one that he apparently knew was epic. Jean didn’t waste any time and immediately set the stage.
“Okay. Santa Barbara,” he began. “You know he has his camp in Santa Barbara? I would hear stories about Jordan coming to the club in Santa Barbara on State Street. It was like, ‘This dude is a wild boy when he comes to the club.’ I was like, Okay.’
“One night we in the club. The Sandbar, and Jordan will remember this story if he ever watch this podcast. We’re at Sandbar. Me and my boy, the one that’s at the hedge fund.” He needed to mention his friend with the hedge fund because money played a pivotal role in the eventual climactic meeting with MJ.
“We on the dance floor, and all of a sudden, like roaches bro, all the girls leave the dance floor. We like, ‘What the hell?’ We see, it’s Jordan at the table and all the females flocked over there,” he recalled.
“The next night. The same thing. We dancing, these girls just leave the dance floor like roaches again. Now we hot. We’re like yo, If he comes again dog, we gonna have to have some words with Michael,” he added.
It seemed that there was no chance that Jordan would, nor Jean and his friend would return to the same club at the same time again. But fate had other plans.
Third night, same thing happens again. We were like, ‘What the hell man?’ So my boy go get a shot. We go there, and at the time, his ex-wife, is now at the club. So we see her and being nice we’re like, ‘Hey how you doing?’ And she’s like,’ Y’all young brothers wanna talk to Michael?’ It’s like, ‘Yeah, yeah. We’d like to talk to Michael.'”
“She goes, ‘Michael, these young brothers wanna talk to you.’ He looked at us and went about his business. Back on his phone. My boy is hot now. He’s like, naw ‘F*** that.'”
Jean had added that MJ gave them a very stern “1 moment” hand gesture that added to his buddy’s feeling a little heated with the basketball god.
“We waiting. We waiting. He gets off the phone and is like, ‘Y’all want an autograph or something?’ My boy being from New York, Brooklyn at that, ‘F no we don’t want no damn autograph. We need you to get the hell up out the club.'”
“He’s like, ‘What?’ He’s (friend) like, ‘Yo man you come up here. You from Brooklyn, and all you seeing is these white girls, you see two black brothers, the only two black dudes in the club and you don’t wanna show us no love?'”
Jean’s brave friend had already stood toe to toe with Jordan and let him know he wasn’t intimidated. You’d think he’d have been done after that right? Wrong. He let MJ know he was wearing a pair of Jordans that he paid good money for. But the Hall of Famer didn’t flinch.
“Then my boy said, ‘Look I got your original 2s on my feet. I paid five grand.’ Five grand at the time. Jordan looked at his feet, he go, ‘So…I got them two.’ I was like, ‘Yo this dude is wiling.'”
After another exchange, Jean revealed that MJ asked if they wanted an autograph, and if not, to leave him be. “He went back on his phone on his earbuds, and we was like, ‘Damn.’ From that day forth, I was like, ‘Bro. I’m never wearing anything Jordan.'”
The tale did indeed live up to the hype. What’s even funnier is that Jean mentioned later that even though he doesn’t buy Jordans, every time he’s on set, the costume designer puts him in a pair. It seems like no matter where he goes, His Airness seems to follow.
