Image Source: Getty / Gregg DeGuire
Michael B. Jordan may be an international superstar now, but at one point, he was just a kid in high school fending off jokes about his name. Unlike most kids who are teased in high school, though, he was recently able to directly address one of his former classmates who used to make fun of him.
On Feb. 23, Jordan was on the red carpet at a fan screening of “Creed III” when he recognized a reporter, “The Morning Hustle” radio host Lore’l, who happened to be an old acquaintance from high school. “Oh yeah, I was the corny kid, right?” he said with a brief laugh to Lore’l, who added that the pair go “all the way back to Chad Science [Academy] in Newark.”
In 2021, Lore’l appeared on the “Undressing Room” podcast during an episode called “Cry Me a River.” In it, she detailed some of the teasings Jordan endured in their school days. “We went to Chad Science [Academy] together in Newark, and to be honest with you, we teased him all the damn time because his name was Michael Jordan,” said Lore’l, per People. “Let’s start there, and he was no Michael Jordan. And he also would come to school with a headshot. We lived in Newark. That’s the ‘hood. We would make fun of him like, ‘What you gonna do with your stupid headshot!?’ And now look at him!”
During their red carpet encounter, in response to Jordan’s claim that Lore’l once called him “corny,” she said she “did not say that” and was “misquoted,” though she did admit that she and her classmates “used to make fun of the name.” At the end of her interview, she tried to smooth things out, telling Jordan, “[You are] obviously killing things out here. You’re not corny anymore.”
Jordan stars in “Creed III,” which he also directed, as the titular Adonis Creed alongside Jonathan Majors and Tessa Thompson. The film hits theaters on March 3.
Watch Jordan’s interview with Lore’l below.