Donald Trump addressed a years-old rumor that he stepped in to save a professional athlete when he was involved in a fight.
During an interview with Jake Paul, released by the White House on Friday (March 13), the 79-year-old president shared his memories about the alleged incident.
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The alleged fight in question involved Kobe Bryant, the late NBA star who died in 2020.
“That was a long time ago,” Trump said when pressed for his memories. He added that “it wasn’t a fight,” saying that he was “breaking up a fight.”
“Which sometimes is more dangerous than being in a fight, right?” he asked Jake in the clip, which was shared on X.
As for what happened, Trump claimed, “Kobe was having a hard time with somebody, and it worked out fine. Yeah, I broke it up. Probably not a smart thing to do. Historically, it’s never good to break up fights.”
Per USA Today, the story was first told in Jeff Pearlman‘s 2020 book, Three-Ring Circus: Kobe, Shaq, Phil, and the Crazy Years of the Lakers Dynasty.
Pearlman said that it occurred in an elevator at the Grand Hyatt Hotel around the 1998 NBA All-Star Game when Bryant was still relatively new to the league. The other person involved was allegedly fellow NBA star Jayson Williams.
“Trump, of all people, grabbed Williams and told Bryant, ‘Get out of here. Quickly,’ ” Pearlman wrote in the book.
Fellow NBA alum Charles Oakley was also allegedly there when it went down. However, when speaking with USA Today Sports, he said that he had no memories of it.
That being said, Oakley added that Williams loved to tell the story, saying he once accused him of “probably” repeating the tale “50 times.”
Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, died in a helicopter crash on January 26, 2020.
The NBA legend’s wife recently paid tribute to them on the sixth anniversary of the tragedy.
