Upworthy's book GOOD PEOPLE, now available - take a look!

Shop
 Explore 

michael b jordan

Pop Culture

Michael B. Jordan runs into his middle-school bully on the red carpet and calls her out

He didn't forget.

via Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons

Michael B. Jordan speaking at the 2017 San Diego Comic Con International, for "Black Panther", at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California.

As long as humans have endeavored to do anything great, there have been those who have tried to take them down. These are the opposite of the creators in life: the bullies, haters and naysayers who only want to bring people down to their level.

But when you have a dream and desire, its easy to tune out the voices of negativity. "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better,” Theodore Roosevelt once said. “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena."

Some folks use the naysayers as fuel to push them to work even harder. Basketball legend Michael Jordan was infamous for letting his thirst for revenge drive him to even greater heights on the court.

Another Michael Jordan, "Black Panther" star, Michael B. Jordan, came face to face with someone who doubted that he could reach his dreams, and he wasn’t shy about letting her know that he remembered. What's Upworthy about the encounter is that he did so with class and confidence.

In 2023, Jordan was on the red carpet for the premiere of "Creed III," a film he starred in and directed. He was interviewed by “The Morning Hustle” radio show host Lore’l, who had recently admitted on the “Undressing Room” podcast that she used to make fun of him in school.

“You know what’s so crazy? I went to school with Michael B. Jordan at a point in life,” Lore’l said. “And to be honest with you, we teased him all the damn time because his name was Michael Jordan. Let’s start there, and he was no Michael Jordan.”

“He also would come to school with a headshot,” she added. “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!”

In addition, her co-host, Eva Marcille, referred to Jordan as “corny.”

Jordan had no problem discussing their past on the red carpet. “We go way back, all the way back to Chad Science [Academy] in Newark,” Lore’l told the actor. Oh yeah, I was the corny kid, right?” Jordan responded with a smirk.

“No, you did not hear me say that! I said we used to make fun of the name,” Lore’l said.

“I heard it,” Jordan said. “I heard it. It’s all good. What’s up?” he responded. “But yeah, [you are] obviously killing things out here…you’re not corny anymore,” Lore’l clarified.

After the exchange went viral, Lore’l admitted that she teased Jordan in school, but they were only classmates for one year.

“So the narrative that I bullied him all throughout high school—this was 7th grade. We were like 12 years old, and everyone made fun of each other,” Lore’l said. “That was school, you know. That was one year. And, again, I’ve never bullied him. That just sounds so outrageous to me.”

Jordan later shared some advice on how to deal with bullies.

"Just stay focused, just stay locked in,” he told a reporter from Complex. “You know, just follow your heart, try to block out the noise and distractions as much as possible and run your race. Don't compare yourself to anybody else. Just keep going."

This article originally appeared on 4.19.24

From Your Site Articles

bullying

'I am struggling to find the words to express my gratitude at this moment but I will try.'

"Black Panther" director Ryan Coogler is still coming to terms with the response to his film.

When you make a Marvel superhero movie, it's a safe bet people will come out to see it. That said, we've never seen anything like the reaction to "Black Panther," a film with a predominantly black cast set in a fictional African nation and not focused on one of Marvel's leading characters.

The nearly universal praise for the film struck a nerve with director Ryan Coogler, who wrote a heartfelt message of gratitude that he shared with fans on Twitter:

"I am struggling to find the words to express my gratitude at this moment but I will try," Coogler wrote, first thanking his cast and filmmaking crew for their contributions.

— (@)

He thanked fans of all backgrounds for celebrating African culture.

Much of the attention paid to "Black Panther" has been on its massive box-office haul — and understandably so. However, what's even more amazing is the sense of unity the film has created with fans. The creative freedom granted to Coogler by Disney and Marvel to craft his own vision clearly extended across the culture, something Coogler noted in his letter:

"Never in a million years did we imagine that you all would come out this strong. It still humbles me to think that people care enough to spend their money and time watching our film — but to see people of all backgrounds wearing clothing that celebrates their heritage, taking pictures next to our posters with their friends and family, and sometimes dancing in the lobbies of theaters — moved me and my wife to tears."

[rebelmouse-image 19477319 dam="1" original_size="1024x683" caption="Photo by Gage Skidmore/Flickr." expand=1]Photo by Gage Skidmore/Flickr.

Right now, the future seems limitless for Coogler, who is only 31 years old and has already made three iconic films.

"Black Panther" is just the third film for Coogler, who first burst on the scene with his powerful drama "Fruitvale Station," which starred "Black Panther" co-star Michael B. Jordan. The pair reunited two years later for "Creed," a spinoff sequel in the "Rocky" film series that won over critics and performed above expectations at the box office. That helped set up Coogler's involvement with "Black Panther."

At this point, it's likely he could pretty much do any project he wanted, though his only formally announced follow-up is a much smaller affair: telling the true story of an Atlanta teacher who takes a questionable path to secure more funding for his students. That film, "Wrong Answer," reportedly will also star Jordan.

[rebelmouse-image 19477320 dam="1" original_size="800x533" caption="Black Panther co-star Michael B. Jordan. Photo by Gage Skidmore/Flickr." expand=1]Black Panther co-star Michael B. Jordan. Photo by Gage Skidmore/Flickr.

The outpouring of support for "Black Panther" shows that Coogler's vision is hitting the right note for audiences throughout the world.

It's incredibly rare these days for any individual piece of content to strike a chord with so many viewers for so many reasons. With numerous competing outlets, even successful films, music, and books rarely reach more than a small fraction of the population. "Black Panther" shows that people can still come together to celebrate diverse stories, rich with meaning and a message of hope.

From Your Site Articles

Josh Gad shares one of his final texts from Chadwick Boseman: 'He knew how precious every moment was' - Upworthy ›

The recent un-whitewashing of these Hollywood roles is adding some much-needed diversity to the screen.

Actress Jamie Chung, who you might know from "Once Upon a Time" and "The Real World: San Diego," just got cast in Fox's popular bat-TV show "Gotham" as reporter Valerie Vale.

On the surface, this might not sound particularly noteworthy — probably because most casual viewers aren't instantly familiar with the character of Valerie or her better-known niece Vicki Vale who's also a reporter (and frequent Bat-romancer).

Photo by Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images for Absolut Elyx.

Chung's casting is notable because we live in an age when white actors are still being cast to play characters of color, while actors of actual color can't even get award nominations for the disproportionate number of roles that are available to them.

The decision to cast Chung in a the role of Valerie Vale is a pretty big deal (and a pretty low bar), but it's even better that it happened in spite of the fact that Vale has traditionally been depicted as a white woman.

Here are a few recent examples of un-whitewashing in Hollywood that's helped to add some much-needed diversity to the screen:

1. Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm, aka the Human Torch, in "Fantastic 4."

When Jordan's casting was first announced, there plenty of vocal internet complainers decrying how a black actor like Michael B. Jordan could possibly play the fire-powered flying brother to Kate Mara, a white actress, who played Susan Storm.

Photo by Christopher Polk/Getty Images.

The in-movie answer? Adoption. Really. It was just that simple.

2. Idris Elba as Heimdall in the "Thor" movies.

Look, I understand that the descriptor "Norse" tends to invoke images of strapping white men with blond or red hair. But this is a movie series about interstellar spacegods with magical hammers who traverse the galaxy on a rainbow bridge — a bridge that Idris Elba kept a watchful eye on in his role as Heimdall.

Photo by Valery Hache/AFP/Getty Images.

Did the fact that Heimdall was white in the comics prevent Elba from convincingly guarding a rainbow galaxy bridge? Of course not.

3. Chloe Bennet as Skye/Quake in "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D."

Following a brief career as a pop star, Chloe Bennet didn't find her first big acting break on the superhero TV show until she stopped using her given Chinese last name: Wang.

Photo by Rachel Murray/Getty Images for Kabam.

While that's an unfortunate testament to Hollywood's problem with race, it's still exciting that we get to see an earthquake-powered superhero, who's also Chinese-American, kickin' ass every Tuesday night.

4. Candice Patton as Iris West on "The Flash."

There's nothing about the character of a reporter who's also the love interest of the eponymous Scarlet Speedster that screams "must be played by a white actor" — or any specific race or ethnicity, for that matter.

Which is good, because Candice Patton rocks it each week as Iris West, Barry Allen's best friend and love interest.

Photo by David Becker/Getty Images for iHeartMedia.

5. Lucy Liu as Joan Watson on "Elementary."

The world of Sherlock Holmes has been altered and adapted a million times over, to the point that we're all pretty familiar with at least one version of it. By casting the eccentric detective's sidekick as a woman, and an Asian woman at that, "Elementary" brought a new, robust, and utterly unique angle to a classic character that we've seen so many times before.

Photo by Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images.

And who doesn't love Lucy Liu?

6. Jason Momoa as Aquaman in "Justice League."

People tend to make fun of Aquaman for his superhuman ability to speak to fish, rather than, I dunno, the fact that he's usually portrayed as a blond-haired, blue-eyed dude from an island nation that exists beneath the Atlantic Ocean.

Photo by Gustavo Caballero/Getty Images for 2014 Sarasota Film Festival.

In this case, the decision to cast Momoa, a mixed-race actor of Hawaiian, Native American, and white backgrounds is actually more believable than, well, anything else about the character.

7. Noma Dumezweni as Hermione Granger in "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child."

Despite Emma Watson's formative portrayal of the bookish Muggle heroine in the "Harry Potter" movie series, the only explicit physical descriptors for the character in the books was that she had brown eyes and curly brown hair.

Noma Dumezweni, left. Photo by Anthony Harvey/Getty Images.

When Noma Dumezweni was cast in the part for the highly-anticipated theatrical production, J.K. Rowling herself came to the defense of the talented black actress, saying, "Noma was chosen because she was the best actress for the job. … But what shocked me was the way people couldn’t visualise a non-white person as the hero of a story. It’s therefore brilliant that this has happened."

8. Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury in ... a lot of Marvel movies.

Photo by John Sciulli/Getty Images for Xbox.

Admittedly, this one is a little tricky: In his first iteration, Nick Fury was a white guy, and then Marvel created another Nick Fury for their "Ultimate" alternative universe, and based him on Samuel L. Jackson's appearance.

Then they cast the actual Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury for the Marvel movie universe and replaced the white comic book Nick Fury with a new black Nick Fury, separate from the other black Nick Fury.

Follow that? No? That's OK. No one really understands it either. But the point is that there's nothing about his skin color that affects his ability to be an awesome super-spy.

9. Dean Cain as Superman in "Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman."

Here's a throwback for ya! Despite his "all-American appearance" (whatever that means), Cain is actually part-Japanese because one of his grandparents was Japanese.

Photo by Tom Sandler/Getty Images.

This is a particularly great example both because Superman is a literal extraterrestrial alien and thus has no need to conform to our earthly racial standards, but also because it's a good reminder that those same earthly racial standards are actually kind of arbitrary.

But the fact that we do acknowledge them is the exact same reason that casting with diversity in mind matters.

Opponents of on-screen diversity call this "reverse-racism" or "tokenism" whenever a white character gets "replaced" by someone of a different race.

But that same erasure has been happening to people of color for a long, long time.

When a white actor gets cast as a person of color, effectively "whitewashing" the character, that cycle of erasure continues and fans miss out on an opportunity to see themselves represented in the media.

If you're an Asian-American who wants to be an actor and you only see other Asian-Americans in background ninja roles or being good at math, well, that sends a message that that's all you can ever be — and could make you feel insecure if you aren't good at math or, say, a kickass ninja. And if you're a non-Asian person who only ever sees Asian characters in movies being good at math, your brain is subconsciously primed to think all Asians are good at math.

But when an actor of color gets cast in a traditionally white role? The only way it affects the story or the audience is that it makes us all more aware of how the world around us really looks. In turn, that helps break down racial stereotypes, and opens our minds to greater possibilities — like inspiring a brighter future where the full range of humanity can be seen in every role, on screen as well as off.