Michael Jordan is seen for first time with his swimsuit wife Yvette Prieto in south of France
Since yesterday’s approval of the eye-watering $3 bιllion sale of his Charlotte Hornets, NBA superstar Michael Jordan hasn’t been seen in public.
The 60-year-old Chicago Bulls star and his lovely wife Yvette Prieto have been traveling throughout southern Europe this summer, and Villefranche-sur-Mer was their most recent trip.
The NBA’s board of governors approved the $3 bιllion sale of the Charlotte Hornets to a group led by Rick Schnall and Gabe Plotkin on Sunday, and Jordan looked to celebrate his record-breaking acquisition with a family swim in the South of France. Jordan was seen unwinding with his wife Yvette aboard a lavish yacht off the town’s French Riviera coastline.
Jordan was relaxing in a deck chair with his family when one of the couple’s twin kids leaned down to kiss him on the cheek.
Before cooling off in an AquaBanas inflatable off the side of the yacht, Yvette, who sparkled in a big pair of diamond stud earrings, could be seen beaming and laughing at the conversation between friends and relatives.
The family outing is the first one since the Hornets, his NBA team, were cleared for sale.
Jordan will keep a small ownership position in the team when the sale is completed, which is anticipated to happen in the coming weeks.
The earliest rᴜmors about Jordan selling the team to Plotkin and Schnall surfaced back in March. For $275 million, Jordan acquired the controlling ownership of the NBA franchise in his native state in 2010.
The Hornets are now valued by Forbes at $1.7 bιllion, ranking 27th among NBA teams and representing an increase of $1.3 bιllion over the previous ten years.
Jordan, who is now the only African-American owner in the NBA, is widely regarded as the best player the NBA has ever produced.
However, Jordan’s success as a player, which included six NBA titles and five MVP awards, did not convert into success as an owner. During his tenure as coach, Charlotte has consistently been one of the weakest teams in the league.
It hasn’t been particularly noteworthy for Jordan to own the Hornets, except from the name change from the Bobcats to the Hornets in 2015.
Since Jordan became the team’s majority owner, Charlotte has only had three winning seasons and two appearances in the postseason. Jordan and his family were also spotted aboard the yacht last week, taking a break from the European heat wave.
While Yvette was spotted going around the yacht in her gym attire, Jordan was observed sitting at his dining table with his kids.
He was spotted dining with Magic Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson a week earlier at Capri’s renowned Lemon Tree restaurant.
The restaurant band playfully serenaded the trio of friends, and Johnson uploaded a funny video of Jordan and himself grinning along with the music.
Johnson posted on Instagram, saying, “Tonight we enjoyed an incredible dinner at the world-famous Da Paolino Ristorante AKA the lemon tree restaurant in Capri, Italy.”
And I got to socialize with John and Vicki Palmer, Judge Greg and Linda Mathis, Sam (Samuel L Jackson) and LaTanya Jackson, the greatest basketball player to ever live, Michael Jordan, and his wife Yvette.
Prieto, Jordan’s wife, and they normally maintain a low profile.
Three years after they first met in a Miami nightclub in 2008, Jordan proposed to the model with Cuban ancestry.
They got married in 2013 and had their kids, who are now nine, the following year.
Before traveling to Italy, MJ and Yvette were in Paris. As they were leaving a restaurant, they were captured on camera by a reporter asking Jordan if he was okay with his son Marcus, 32, dating Larsa Pippen, the ex-wife of his Bulls teammate Scottie Pippen, 49.
He laughed and exclaimed, “No!” Then, in a recent episode of Marcus and Larsa’s podcast, the two of them opened up about how they truly felt about Michael’s comment.
On the one hand, Marcus was ‘dying laughing’ at Michael’s remark, which was ‘hilarious to me’ since ‘I know my dad, right?’
On the other hand, Larsa “didn’t think it was funny,” “found nothing funny about it,” and was perplexed that Marcus considered the scenario amusing.
Marcus said, “Everyone in my family is competitive. The Jordans, you know, talking s*** is kind of in our DNA. And it motivates us. We become driven by it.
He immediately assumed that Michael was playing when he heard what Michael had said about Larsa. He’s laughing and joking around. He’s simply having fun, you know.
Marcus added waggishly that his father might have been “a little lit” from tequila the night of his viral jab at Larsa at the Parisian eatery Matignon.