LeBron James trolls us all with European take on drinking wine with his teenage kids
We’ve covered LeBron James being done with caring what you think in this space before.
His latest installment involves drinking wine with his 11- and 14-year-old children.
Let’s get straight to it.
"My 14 and 11 year olds drink wine. That's how mature they are." – LeBron
(📹: @Lakers) pic.twitter.com/SwdtOtVD6J
— Sporting News (@sportingnews) October 9, 2018
LeBron: Don’t put it on mom
“I’ve got very mature 14- and 11-year olds,” James told reporters on Tuesday. “My 14- and 11-year-olds drink wine. Yeah. That’s how mature they are. They’ll be driving next week too.
“Whatever dad and mom’s having. Put it on me, though. Don’t put it on mom. Put it on dad, put it on dad.”
This should rile the haters up
OK. Well. His wish will surely be granted. The large swath of James haters always eager to pounce will surely take the easy bait of the obvious potential pitfalls of teenage alcohol consumption James presented.
But this space isn’t about proper parenting.
While the reasonable, easy arguments against drinking with 14- and 11-year-olds are plenty, there’s the European counter that responsible wine drinking at a young age promotes responsible drinking as adults.
LeBron knows wine; just ask him
And this is what James wants you to know. He’s more European than you when it comes to wine.
It’s not James’ first drive down this path.
James has touted his wine snobbery before, covered extensively and entertainingly here by Yahoo Sports’ Ben Rohrbach ahead of a December trip to Napa Valley with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
“I was not a wine guy,” James told reporters last December. “I didn’t drink wine at all. It kind of started around when I turned 30, actually. I wanted to learn about it. Everybody was talking about how great it is and the different regions, not only here in America, but also obviously Italy and France and so many different places. So, I started to do some research. I started tasting different wines, and it took a while for my palette to actually give in to it, because your first time drinking wine is not a very, very lasting taste.”
Once his palette gave in, so did James. Three years into his wine “research,” James had become a full-fledged wine connoisseur.
Just ask him — or look at his Instagram account.
“P.S. don’t talk to me about wine like u know it if you really don’t know what you’re talking about,” James wrote with his Instagram image of eight empty bottles of wine. “Seriously! Thank you!”
Bottom line: LeBron doesn’t care
So, yeah. James is that guy. The guy who wants you to know that he knows a lot more about the sophisticated world of wine drinking than you do.
And now he wants you to know that his kids have a head start on that wine front that he didn’t have as a child. So they’ll be even better at it. Maybe one of them will grow up to be a great sommelier.
Or probably not. We’re really not sure what his endgame with Tuesday’s statement is.
But it remains crystal clear that what you think doesn’t matter one ounce to him.
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