Because Anthony McClelland, James’ father, was mostly absent and never paid chιld support

Gloria James, mom to NBA superstar LeBron James, wears the title “Mother of the King” with pride and sports a “Queen James” tattoo on her arm.

She may be the mother of an NBA legend, but she hasn’t let it change her modest nature.

“I’m very simple and down to earth,” Gloria told pupils at LeBron’s I Promise School in Akron, Ohio, during a Q&A. “So if you ever need someone to listen to you vent, someone to talk to, someone to hug you, or anything else. We’re one huge, content family.

Gloria, LeBron’s single mother, continues to play a significant role in his life both professionally and personally. The NBA superstar says she is mostly responsible for his current level of success.

According to an interview LeBron gave to Maria Shriver of Today in 2014, the basketball star said, “I don’t know if she read about it, or she just heard about it, but from day one, I always had that mother and father inside my mother, so I never was a kid that was kind of like, ‘Where is my father?’”

He said, “I don’t know where she found the fortitude to sаy that, but she gave it to me and I never even had to think about it. I still haven’t asked her, but she had to be the best there is.

Meet Gloria James, the inspiring athlete who raised basketball superstar LeBron.

She gave birth to LeBron when she was only 16 years old.

Born on February 4, 1968, in Akron, Ohio, Gloria Marie James is the sister of Curt James and the younger sister of Terry James.

Sports Illustrated reports that she gave birth to LeBron when she was only 16 years old, and that he has never met his biological father. In an essay he wrote for Today in 2014, LeBron recounted that his grandmother, Freda James Howard, helped Gloria raise him when he was little.

However, on Christmas Day in 1987, when LeBron was just three years old, Howard passed away. When her parents died, Gloria was mostly responsible for raising her son and making ends meet with the help of her two brothers.

LeBron and Gloria uprooted his family seven times before James turned five, and it wasn’t easy. When Gloria and her brothers couldn’t afford to heat the house, LeBron, then in fourth grade, missed 82 days of school and was sent to live with a foster family.

“Just how much responsibility that comes with being a single mom every single day, you don’t have that other half or that helping male influence in the house that can—especially in my case, being a son—that can give you that fatherly love or that fatherly guidance,’ ” LeBron said Shriver. As my mother so aptly put it: “My mother figured [that] out.”

According to ESPN, LeBron’s youth football coach recalls Gloria ecstatically running up and down the sidelines after each of his scores, but Gloria never pushed her son to become a professional athlete.

In a 2001 profile of LeBron, who was then a 16-year-old junior in high school in Akron, Ohio, the New York Times described Gloria as “an enthusiastic fan” of her son. She informed the reporters that while she was proud of him, she would not encourage him to become an NBA superstar.

“All I want is for LeBron to be happy.” “He really enjoys basketball,” she said. But, at the very least, I hope he can complete high school alongside his friends. However, a decision will be taken when the time comes.

“He’s a level-headed guy,” she continued. He was usually well-mannered and kind. He’s never caused me any problems.

The SUV she gave to LeBron is being investigated.

Gloria surprised LeBron with a Hummer furnished with televisions and video game system hookups for his 18th birthday in December 2002. The purchase was strange, according to the New York Times, because LeBron and Gloria had previously lived in Akron’s public housing.

High school athletes in Ohio risk losing their “amateur” status if they “capitalize on athletic fаme by receiving money or gifts of monetary value,” according to the state’s bylaws. If it was discovered that Gloria gifted LeBron the Hummer rather than purchasing it with the $50,000 vehicle loan she claimed to have used, he might have lost his amateur status. Although LeBron was cleared after a two-week investigation by the Ohio High School Athletic Association’s commissioner, Gloria never addressed the SUV gift at the time.

She is a major administrator for the LeBron James Family Foundation.

Gloria, LeBron’s mother, is the foundation’s vice president. The charity assists underprivileged children in Akron, Ohio, where LeBron grew up. One of the foundation’s biggest achievements is the I Promise School, a public school for impoverished children in Akron, Ohio. He attributed the institution’s very existence to Gloria’s relentless attempts to create a stable environment for LeBron.

In an April 2020 Family Foundation video, LeBron said, “Without my mother and the way she raised me, there is no school.” “IPS would not exist without Gloria James.” She was always willing to assist me when I needed it. She handed me the strategy. My mother taught me the principles of life, and when it came time to put something like this together, I just remembered all she had taught me and applied it to our team.

Gloria is the grandmother of LeBron “Bronny” James Jr., Bryce Maximus, and Zhuri Nova James, LeBron and Savannah’s children.

Gloria is quite close to her grandchildren, and she routinely publishes pictures of them on Instagram. She shows her support for her sons by attending their basketball games and posting gushing blogs about them on the internet.

I enjoy watching my grandsons grow into wonderful young men both on and off the field. In an April 2022 post, she posted photographs of herself with her grandchildren at their tournaments, writing, “I’m so proud and I love you both very much @bronny @_justbryce!!.”

She and Zhuri have shared many touching moments over the years, including visits to theme parks such as Disneyland and Universal Studios.

LeBron missed her the most while incarcerated.

LeBron’s greatest struggle during the early phases of the CоVID-19 pandemic was socially isolating himself from Gloria. In a July 2020 press conference, LeBron stated, “It’s the first time in my life that I went that long without seeing my mom,” and that being with Gloria was “the only thing that [he] really missed.”

“I hadn’t seen my mom since All-Star weekend, and then I saw her two or three weeks before we had to report back to our respective cities,” he explained. Simply expressed, “that was extremely for me.”

During the epidemic’s quarantine phase, LeBron said Gloria’s positive outlook helped him get through it, and she told him that they will be reunited “in due time.”

After the 2020 NBA Finals, LeBron James called her first.

LeBron called Gloria on FaceTime to tell her that he and the Lakers had won the NBA championship (his fourth title) in October 2020.

On Twitter, a video showing LeBron telling Gloria, as they both sit on the floor, “Everything you’ve been through, everything I’ve seen, it’s nothing that can stop me, ’cause this s— right here, this is nothing compared to the s— you had to go through,” has gone viral. God is great and good. Mama, I’ll do my best to make you proud.