‘Courtside Karen’ tries to lay into LeBron, gets booted

Four Atlanta Hawks fans got booted from their courtside seats on Monday night after trying to start beef with Lakers star LeBron James.

Referees halted Monday night’s Lakers-Hawks matchup when James and Atlanta fan Chris Carlos started to exchange words. Carlos was sitting courtside and caught the attention of James, who was on his way to putting up 21 points, 9 assists, and 7 rebounds.

I don’t know whether Carlos was talking about James’ artificial hairline, or calling out James for flopping like a baby seal, but either way it was clear that Carlos wanted some type of smoke with the NBA superstar. Yet what truly escalated the situation was the fan’s wife, Julianna Carlos, who had not only wanted smoke, she wanted to put gasoline on a grease fire. This is a pretty good breakdown:

James addressed the situation after the game in his postgame press conference. The only real issue with the interaction was the fact that the woman took her mask down to yell at James. Even though those fans had to go through testing protocols to sit courtside, it can still be harmful to players for a fan to be yelling without a mask on in a deadly pandemic.

“At the end of the day, I’m happy fans are back in the building,” he said after the road win. “I miss that interaction. I need that interaction; we as players need that interaction. I don’t feel like it was warranted to be kicked out.”

Juliana Carlos would later share her side of the story on an Instagram post.

“So, I’m minding my own business, and Chris has been a Hawks fan forever. He’s been watching the games for 10 years. Whatever, he has this issue with LeBron. I don’t have an issue with LeBron. I don’t give a fuck about LeBron,” she says in the video.

“Anyway, I’m minding my own business, drinking my [inaudible], 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 fucking talk to my husband.’ And he looks at me, and he goes, ‘Sit the fuck down, bitch.’ And I go, ‘Don’t fucking call me a bitch. You sit the fuck down. Get the fuck out of here. Don’t fucking talk to my husband like that.’”

Whether James actually called her a “bitch” is unknown, and would certainly be wrong if he did.

James did, however, call her “Courtside Karen” in a postgame tweet.

When Twitter got wind of the situation, many speculated that Mrs. Carlos wouldn’t have been so tough had James’ wife, Savannah, pulled up to the game.

In all, this situation between James and the Carlos couple is likely much ado about nothing. It will probably just serve as a good laugh for the timeline.