Friends to lovers! Larsa Pippen initially denied any romantic connection with Marcus Jordan, but after they went public with their relationship, she didn’t hesitate to gush about her beau.

The Real Housewives of Miami star explained in February 2023 that the duo actually met four years earlier and struck up a friendship after connecting at a party. “We have a lot of mutual friends, and so we’re kind of in the same circle,” the reality star said during an interview with Tamron Hall, adding that they have “everything in common.”

The Peacock personality revealed that the pair’s friendship turned romantic after she realized she was “jealous” seeing Jordan talk to another woman. “It was weird because I’m not really the jealous person, but I was jealous over the situation,” the Larsa Marie designer told People in February 2023. “And so then, I was thinking maybe I do really like him. That kind of sealed the deal.”

While the couple may have a lot of mutual friends, one of their biggest commonalities comes from their strong connection to the NBA. Marcus is the son of basketball icon Michael Jordan, while Larsa was previously married to former Chicago Bulls forward Scottie Pippen. Michael and Scottie played together on the Bulls for more than a decade, leading the team to 6 NBA championships in the 1990s.

While Scottie and Larsa — who share sons Scotty Jr., Preston and Justin and daughter Sophia — have maintained an amicable relationship since their 2018 split, the same cannot be said for Scottie and his former teammate. The Arkansas native wasn’t happy with the way he was portrayed in the 2020 docuseries The Last Dance, which focused on Michael’s quest to win a final championship with the Bulls.

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“They glorified Michael Jordan while not giving nearly enough praise to me and my proud teammates,” Scottie wrote in his memoir, Unguarded, which hit shelves in November 2021. “Michael deserved a large portion of the blame. The producers had granted him editorial control of the final product. The doc couldn’t have been released otherwise. He was the leading man and the director.”

Larsa, for her part, has seemingly tried to stay out of the drama between the two athletes, focusing instead on her romance with Marcus. When the twosome made their romance Instagram official in January 2023, they posed in front of a floral arrangement that nodded to Marcus’ dad. “✔️Checks over stripes🏆,” Larsa wrote via Instagram at the time alongside a snap of the couple with a model of Michael’s Bulls jersey.

“Larsa and Marcus are still trying to play it coy [but] it’s very obvious to everyone around them that the chemistry is off the charts and they’re crazy about each other,” a source exclusively told Us Weekly that same month. “They’ve been friends for years. She’s super comfortable with him and has always said he’d be a major catch for anyone.”

Keep scrolling for everything Larsa has said about her romance with Marcus: