ESPN’s recent documentary, “The Last Dance” reminded old fans and schooled new ones on why Michael Jordan has earned the title of the greatest NBA player of all time. It demonstrated why the late, great Kobe Bryant worked so hard to emulate Jordan throughout his career. But to his kids, Jordan is simply Dad. He has five kids total, three of whom are grown.
Here are 15 things to know about Michael Jordan’s grown kids.
Jordan has two adult sons and one adult daughter. They are Jeffrey Michael Jordan, 31, Marcus James Jordan, 29 and Jasmine Mickael Jordan, 27. Jeffrey was born Nov. 18, 1988; Marcus was born Dec. 24, 1990 and Jasmine was born Dec. 7, 1992.
Michael Jordan’s grown kids are committed to making sure their father’s legacy remains viable and relevant.
Jeffrey leads digital innovation for the Jordan brand. Marcus owns a company called Trophy Room, a store inspired by his dad’s trophy room at home that sells Jordan inspired clothing and shoes, according to Marie Claire. Jasmine works in sports management for the Nike Jordan brand, according to CBS Sports.
In an interview with Forbes, Jeffrey said he and partner Sevan Avakian started the company to “collaborate, invest, and consult with startup companies in the sports and entertainment space.”
Marcus is passionate about maintaining the signature nostalgia of his father’s retail brand.
“I wanted our 1st iteration of a 1-14 Retro to be something special & memorable … It was important for the design to be authentic & unique, so I incorporated all of the colors from the original trophy room in our house into one of my favorite silhouettes, The Jordan 5,” Marcus said on his store’s website.
“So our Jordan women’s Heiress collection launched back in January and I’ve been a part of that whole process from designing, picking colorways, and pushing more feminine products,” Jasmine told InStyle. “I, too, like my brother Marcus, want to make sure that our father’s legacy continues, and working with the brand from the ground up is preparing us for the day he decides he wants to step aside.”
Jeffrey earned an academic scholarship to the University of Illinois where he walked on to the basketball team and played for three seasons before transferring to the University of Central Florida (UCF) to be with Marcus. Both played basketball at UCF.
Marcus caused a big controversy in 2009 during his freshman year at UCF when he wore some of his father’s Air Jordans during a game instead of the school’s contracted Adidas. It cost the school its multi-million-dollar contract with Adidas. Then Nike became a sponsor for the school.
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“He would treat us exactly the same as any other basketball player he was playing,” Marcus told the Today Show. “We’re all so competitive. We all want to win and there was nothing given. You had to earn everything for sure.”
“If anything, it lit more of a fire in us to wanna get out there and play,” Jeffrey said. “I wouldn’t want him to hold back anything, because that wouldn’t make any of us better.”
In a segment entitled “’Heir’ Jordans” on NBC’s “Today Show,” Jeffrey, Marcus and Jasmine made their first combined TV appearance.
“It took a while. I think I was like 10, 11 years old, when I finally just Googled him and was trying to understand why everyone was so obsessed and why everyone didn’t think he just had a regular job like I did,” Jasmine said about her father. “So it definitely took a minute for it to hit me, but no joke I Googled him and was like, “OK, now I get it.”
She repeated the story in an interview with Good Morning America (GMA) co-host Michael Strahan.
“I didn’t understand it,” Jasmine told Strahan. “I had kids and teachers and stuff at school telling me like ‘It’s incredible your father is who he is,’ and I’m thinking, ‘You all haven’t met my father to my knowledge, so how do you know this?’ So I did, I Googled him and I found a lot clearly.”
“Always more work to be done!” Jeffrey said in an interview with Forbes. “My wife Radina is extremely good at lining up new movies and TV series to watch — we’ve spent a bunch of time watching documentaries and catching on old flicks we haven’t had a chance to see yet. She’s also convinced me to reorganize and donate the countless shoes, gear apparel that’s been sitting around our house for weeks.”
Jordan’s adult kids have created a joint venture called “Heir Jordan” to carve out their own legacies.
“My siblings and I have founded our own joint-venture (Heir Jordan) to be a vehicle for investing, philanthropy, and marketing as we continue to create and co-create our own legacy. We will be launching those initiatives throughout 2020-2021 and beyond,” Jeffrey told Forbes.
Jasmine and her fiancé professional basketball player Rakeem Christmas – whom she met while in college at Syracuse University – welcomed a son in 2019. His name is Rakeem Michael Christmas and he is the NBA legend’s first grandchild.
“It’s been amazing to see him in a different light. Obviously we got to see him when he came home and was done with work for the day or the night, but being able to see him in his element, in his atmosphere with the team and see all the ups and downs throughout that season has been a treat to watch for sure,” Jeffrey told GMA.
“It’s been eye opening. I was so young at the time so now I’m actually seeing like ‘OK, this is what was going on around me’ and now I’m understanding the chaos and everything that was happening, so it’s been a joy really to watch,” Jasmine added.
“For me I always feel like the foundation that he built can’t be rivaled, just the way that he grew the game of basketball … obviously everything that he’s done with the Jordan brand and changing sneaker culture as a whole,” Marcus told The Breakfast Club. “I feel like it’s good for kids today who didn’t really get a chance to watch him play, now you get to hear some of the stories. Even the people that got to watch him play, now you’re kind of pulling the curtain behind the scenes and getting into the weeds of what was really going on during that season.”
Over the years, many have speculated that Jordan isn’t close to his kids because he’s too competitive, but his kids say not so.
“I think that was one of the biggest misconceptions that he couldn’t turn that (competitiveness) off and he definitely could turn that off and be Dad, take us to school, making sure we got our work done and did everything we needed to do,” Jeffrey told The Breakfast Club.
“Between him and my mom they made sure that we felt like he was normal as can be and we grew up very normal and for that I’m grateful,” Jasmine told GMA.
Jasmine even posted a hilarious response to podcast host Toure who said “The Last Dance” underscored MJ’s “distant relationship with his kids.” She posted a GIF of her Dad saying “Stop it. Get some help.”
When asked by Charlamagne Tha God hosts if they could wear any other sneakers, all three of MJ’s grown kids responded “Hell no.” They said their Dad would not only throw away their shoes if they wore any other brands, but those of their friends also. Sketchers light-up sneakers and some of Bow Wow’s shoes were among the casualties.
“I had some of the light-up Sketchers … and my pops threw them sh*ts out. When I tell you I was hurt,” Jasmine said, recounting a story from her childhood.
“We were good friends with Bow Wow when we were younger and he would come to the house wearing Iversons or Converse or whatever and my Dad would always make sure he’d throw them out,” Marcus added.
“I’m always engaging with people because you can’t debate it because the eras are so different. The game is so different. There’s been some times when I tweeted about LeBron and my Dad tweeted me and said ‘Hey, stay off Twitter.’”
Jasmine and Jeffrey said they let Marcus “handle their lightweights” and don’t debate their father’s GOAT status as much. However, Jasmine said she likes to remind people they can’t just skip Kobe when it comes to the NBA’s GOAT conversation. Unsurprisingly, she still favors her father above all.
“We’re biased and at the end of the day my Dad is the GOAT,” Jasmine said.
