Michael Jordan has shown up at Churchill Downs in Louisville for the Kentucky Derby on a few occasions over the years, and he knew just the right person to reach out to, the day before the big event. Entrepreneur Joey Wagner organizes the biggest celebrity events at the Kentucky Derby, and he recounted Jordan’s head of security reaching out to him on The Player’s Perspective Uncensored Podcast.
“He’s like, ‘Yeah, we trying to come to the party tonight,'” Wagner said. “I’m like okay, cool.’ I knew it was going to be like star-studded… I mean, you had Wayne Gretzky, Venus Williams, Serena Williams, Kid Rock, AM was DJing. I mean, Terrell Owens, [Chad Ochocinco], I mean, you had 30 to 40 A-list celebrities in that. Jermaine Dupri, Janet Jackson. I mean, crazy.”
Wagner, owner of the JWagner Group, says Jordan entered through the back door and was very respectful. They had to scramble a bit to accommodate him, though, as the tables were booked. Wagner had to ask former NFL star Terrell Owens to move to another table, and he readily agreed, as he was with the Jordan Brand.
“[Jordan] walks in, and in my 27 years of doing this, I have never seen a room shut down like that,” Wagner stated. “People were taking off their Jordans on their feet and throwing them in the air. I mean, I’ve never felt an aura of a dude that walked in a room. And this was like prime MJ, the GOAT, the legend. We put him at a table, and he’s super grateful and thankful, and we got him all taken care of.”
Jordan is among a handful of people who are capable of shutting down an entire room of A-listers. Wagner is far from the only one who has spoken about this aura he has.
NFL icon Shannon Sharpe said Jordan is the only man he’s met who seems mythical. Sharpe felt he was levitating when they met and added that he didn’t seem real. That’s the kind of impact Jordan has on people.
Wagner also shared here that he allowed Jordan to smoke cigars there, even though it was against the law.
“It was probably 30 minutes later after I got him in,” Wagner said. “He goes, ‘Yo, J-Dub, come here come real quick.’ He goes, ‘Yo, can I smoke my cigar in here?’ And I go, ‘Yeah, bro…’ But what’s crazy is that people don’t understand, they had just passed the smoking ban in Louisville, so you couldn’t smoke cigarettes, cigars, nothing in the clubs. But I was like, man, f it.
“I will pay the fine if Michael Jordan wants to smoke a cigar,” Wagner added. “It was just a crazy reaction. I’m like, ‘Yeah, bro, do whatever you want.’ And then he’s like, ‘Yo, you want to smoke one with me later?’ And I’m like, ‘Man, hell yeah.’… Later, he comes back over, he pulls out a cigar. We were lighting it up. But I was like, ‘Bro, I’ll never forget that.’ I had never, to this day, had seen a spot shut down.”
That would have been a special feeling for Wagner. It is not every day that you get to share a moment like that with a larger-than-life figure like Jordan.
