Four fans were ejected from Atlantaâs State Farm Arena on Monday for shouting profanities at LeBron James, among them a woman whose antics inspired the Lakers superstar to nickname her âCourtside Karenâ on social media.
The game between the Atlanta Hawks and the NBA champion Los Angeles Lakers was in the fourth quarter when a couple identified as Juliana and Chris Carlos of Atlanta got into the verbal exchange with King James.
Juliana Carlos, standing on the sidelines with her face mask hanging beneath her chinâin violation of the arenaâs COVID-19 rulesâcan be heard telling James, âShut the fuck up! Donât talk to my husband like that!â
Within moments, State Farm Arena security guards, along with referee Mitchell Irvin, ejected the raucous quartet from the premises, and Juliana Carlos soon posted a video of the melee on her Instagram, calling James a âfucking loserâ in the accompanying text. She followed that up with an epic tirade in which she gave her own account of what went down.
pic.twitter.com/5SKVbIphdZ https://t.co/lyVPnBGYA9
â Ballislife.com (@Ballislife) February 2, 2021
In the video, which has since been removed from Instagram, Carlos recalls:
âSo, Iâm minding my own business, and Chris has been a Hawks fan forever. Heâs been watching the games for 10 years. Whatever, he has this issue with LeBron. I donât have an issue with LeBron. I donât give a fuck about LeBron. Anyway, Iâm 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, âDonât fucking talk to my husband.â And he looks at me and he goes, âSit the fuck down, bitch.â And I go, âDonât fucking call me a bitch. You sit the fuck down. Get the fuck out of here. Donât fucking talk to my husband like that.'â
Some whoâve watched the video of the altercation believe James got in a few choice words of his own, claiming they can hear him calling Chris Carlos, âOlâ steroid ass.â James contends that Mr. Carlos started the uproar by saying something to him that went âout of bounds.â
Lakers center Montrezl Howard backed his teammateâs play, saying, âI guess [Carlos] said something that rubbed the big dawg the wrong way.â
The Lakers went on to beat the Hawks 107 to 99 and James laughed off the incident, tweeting, âCourtside Karen was MAD MAD!!â
https://twitter.com/KingJames/status/1356467866632085504?s=20
James expressed mixed feelings about the excitable Hawks fans while talking to reporters after the game.
âThey might have had a couple drinks, maybe,â he said. âAnd they could have probably kept it going during the game, and the game wouldnât have been about the game no more, so I think the referees did what they had to do.â
James then added, âAt the end of the day, Iâm happy fans are back in the building,â he said. âI miss that interaction. I need that interaction; we as players need that interaction. I donât feel like it was warranted to be kicked out.â
The Hawks began letting fans back into the building at 8 percent capacity just last Tuesday. Even with only about 1,300 people in attendance, the Hawks are one of just nine NBA teams allowing live spectators at their games so far this season.
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