Lebron James, the star player of the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team, has deleted and apologized for an Instagram story he posted over the weekend in which he sang along to a song by rapper 21 Savage that includes a blatantly anti-Semitic lyric.
James included a caption of the lyric – "We been getting that Jewish money, everything is kosher" – in his Instagram story.
The controversy was James' second in a week, after he lashed out several days earlier at team owners for having a "slave mentality" toward players, particularly the African-American ones.
Interviewed on an HBO program last week, James said, "They got a bunch of old white men owning teams and they got that slave mentality. And it's like, 'This is my team. You do what the f--- I tell y'all to do. Or we get rid of y'all.'"
In the same interview, James expressed his appreciation for NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, a Jew, whom he said understood that players had feelings on issues.
"It doesn't even matter if Adam agrees on what we're saying, he at least would want to hear us out," James said.
The Instagram post, presumably seen by the basketball star's 45.8 million followers, caused a backlash on social media, with users accusing him of encouraging anti-Semitism.
Speaking to ESPN on Sunday night, James said, "Apologies, for sure, if I offended anyone. … That's not why I chose to share that lyric. … It definitely was not the intent, obviously, to hurt anybody.
"So, I actually thought it was a compliment and obviously it wasn't, through the lens of a lot of people. My apologies."
