Who is Kyrie Irving?
In 2021, Irving refused to take the COVID-19 vaccine, causing him to sit out for a chunk of the Brooklyn Nets’ season. In 2022, he posted a documentary on his Instagram story which endorsed the Black Israelite movement and promoted Holocaust denialism. Irving apologized after he was suspended yet again, stating that he is an “OMNIST” and has no intention to spread hatred. My understanding is this: Irving was horribly careless with his influence, but it was not his intention to harm Jewish people (he stated his regret in an interview and took ‘responsibility’).
My intention here is not to absolve Irving of responsibility, but rather to understand what led him towards anti-vaxxing and conspiratorial ideologies, and how he has evolved since then. I would like understand him as a person first, then analyze him specifically as a person desiring influence.
I believe Irving is too hasty to publicly spread his beliefs — a tendency which continually manifests as a double-edged sword in his life. On one hand, his beliefs have led him towards a fulfilling spiritual path: He found solace in Islam and formed a connection with his Standing Rock Sioux ancestry, both of which he talks about extensively online. However, as his controversies in 2021–22 demonstrated, he easily falls into believing conspiracies (which he also spreads on social media). For example, Irving has previously stated a belief that the earth is flat, that Black Americans are the ‘actual’ Jewish people living in exile and that the COVID-19 ‘jab’ is a hoax.
Kyrie forced his way out of Cleveland to Boston in 2017 because he didn’t want to be on a team with LeBron James. After two years with the Boston Celtics, he decided he wanted to be in Brooklyn, where all his political controversies would occurr. He developed a reputation for blowing up situations: he was a toxic player who you didn’t want to have around.
That being said, the Irving of 2025 is the product of tangible growth from the pains and controversies of his younger days. With regards to Boston, he said: “At the end of the day, I wasn’t my best self during that time.” In a 2024 press conference, in reference to the Brooklyn controversy, Irving stated: “I didn’t really have the understanding of who I was as a person … and I had to figure that out, and what you’re seeing now is a version of me that I’m proud of.”
When Irving speaks now, there is a legitimate weight to his words: In his livestreams and videos, there is sincerity in his speech which radiates through his eyes. He has the countenance of somebody with a cultivated maturity, a humility – granted by experience — that I can respect. There seems to be genuine goodness in Irving.
Yet it can be hard to tell when somebody’s speech is authentic in its wisdom or pseudo-spiritual — especially given I have never met Irving. I can only make judgments from a distance on social media, which is seemingly Irving’s favorite way to communicate. He chooses to constantly espouse his views to his over 20 million instagram followers, meaning that the Irving I see from his own platforms is just his outward presentation of himself.
Irving calls himself Chief Hélà, and his fanbase his “tribe,” (which may also be a marketing technique for his ANTA Sneakers). He said on an Instagram live that he’s here to “guide humanity in a way that’s never been seen before” and that he’s “building towards being one of the biggest farmers ever …. and [wants to] create small holistic wellness villages.” Although Irving may speak with authenticity — with vibrations of humanity and truth, this ambition runs contrary to the spiritual work he has supposedly been doing to better himself.
I am reminded of Kendrick Lamar’s song “Savior,” where he states “he is not your savior,” (and also that he “caught COVID and started to question Kyrie.”) Unlike Irving, Lamar is famous, and a product of spiritual work, but in his humility he does not crave to be the leader of a global movement (although the hypocrisy of the Drake beef on his message in that song is not lost on me).
Irving, on the other hand, seems to want to be a savior.
That gleam in Irving’s eyes, which I interpreted at first in his interviews as his humanity and groundedness, may exist in tandem with the light of a growing spiritualistic one. This evolved ego feels like a forming god-complex — one which may rest on a grounded worldview of empathy and humanity. But mixed with the power of fame and generational wealth, and Irving’s personality, something feels off. Irving learned to not spread conspiracies but missed the deeper lesson behind that episode: His use of social media only serves to center himself (an unreliable political and social agent) in his own movement.
We must sit with the fact that Irving’s groundedness and spiritual ego may coexist with his belief in conspiracies — and that he may be a good person at heart. He may be simultaneously self-centered and empathetic, or, as many people like to paint him – nothing more than a pseudo-spiritual hoax.
Irving’s personality and beliefs may ultimately be as hard to interpret as he is to guard on the basketball court.
But if one thing’s certain — that dude should delete Instagram.
