LeBron James once revealed that his mother Gloria James never let him feel the loss of his father in his life. As we all know, King James is considered by many to be the greatest basketball player of all time and the face of the NBA. While he certainly found an incredible amount of success throughout his career in the league, James went through a plethora of struggles during his childhood.
Fans must be aware that LeBron’s father Anthony McClelland was never a part of his life and a convicted criminal. Therefore, the NBA star had no real father figure around when growing up. Despite that, he shared that this loss never really affected him much. Let us take a closer look and find out more.
LeBron James didn’t feel the loss of his father since Gloria James was “doing it all”
One can only imagine what LeBron’s childhood would have been like. Since his father left soon after he was born, James and his mother had no choice but no move from neighborhood to neighborhood in order to live in a safe environment. This was quite difficult. Especially since the localities were filled with crime and Gloria was struggling to secure a stable job and means of income.
However, she never let her young son know the difficulties and challenges that they were facing in order to survive. As a result of that, even though LeBron likely went through a fair share of hardships, he never really felt deprived of much. James was once interviewed by Larry King and revealed that the efforts Gloria put into raising him didn’t allow for him to feel the loss of Anthony McClelland.
“I never thought about my father. She (Gloria James) was doing everything that I could ever dream of. It was times where Christmas would come around and my birthday would come around, and I’d think I may have one or two presents or I may not get anything because I understand the struggle, and it’ll be a floor full of stuff. There was no reason for me to even ask, ‘mom, where is my father’ because she was doing it all.”
This was quite a heartwarming narrative shared by the 4x NBA champion. Although it is highly unlikely that his mother could provide for him everything that he could ever dream of, she did her best and raised him to be a responsible adult and member of society. Despite the absence of LeBron’s father, Gloria showed enough love and care for him to never really register that loss.
