Golden State Warriors owner Joe Lacob sat next to Rihanna during Game 1 of the NBA Finals last week — at least for a little while.
Early in the game, Lacob and Rihanna were spotted sitting courtside together and chatting it up. Shortly after that, Lacob’s fiancée wound up sitting between Joe and Rihanna, which led to speculation that the Warriors owner’s lady friend was jealous or something. Lacob says that was not at all the case.
Instead, Lacob explained during an NBA Finals panel on Friday that he invited Rihanna to sit near him but quickly became annoyed that she was cheering for LeBron James.
“She bought seats, paid a lot of money for them, and she can root for whoever she wants, right?” Lacob explained, as transcribed by Barry Petchesky of Deadspin. “But I thought I would be a nice guy and I took my two kids, who get to go to a lot of games and booted them down to the end of the court and moved her next to me, and said, ‘Hey, sit next to the owner.’
“I thought I was being friendly. She was rooting for LeBron the whole game so finally I was getting irritated and I said, ‘I’m the owner of the Warriors.’ She didn’t care, she just kept going. So finally I said that’s it, and I moved a couple seats down. Everyone has it that I moved my fiancée next to her because she got upset that I was sitting next to Rihanna which is not true.”
That’s pretty cold that Lacob traded his own kids for Rihanna during an NBA Finals game, but I digress.
Had Lacob seen some of the shots J.R. Smith has taken at Rihanna in the past, he would have known that she is a big LeBron fan. Although, Rihanna wasn’t wearing any Cleveland Cavaliers colors. As we know, she often turns heads with her wardrobe selections at games.
