A day after being waived by the Chicago Bulls for what the franchise called “conduct detrimental to the team,” guard Jaden Ivey said his thoughts turned dark as he struggled with devastating injuries last year, in a livestreamed conversation in which he also discussed his recent family issues and the Bulls’ medical evaluation.
“I’ve almost committed suicide multiple times,” Ivey said Tuesday evening during an interview with the “PinPoint Podcast,” hosted by Kerrigan Skelly, a self-described evangelist with nearly 100,000 YouTube subscribers. “And I’m not ashamed to say it. I’m not ashamed because God was merciful to keep me here.
“I had (oxycodone) pills in my hand. And my wife was telling me, ‘Don’t do this. Don’t go down this road.’”
Earlier Tuesday during another livestream on Instagram, Ivey said his wife and family have recently stopped communicating with him.
“That’s why my wife in here, and she not even texting me,” Ivey said on Instagram. He also said, “Those who are around me, those who are my family members betraying (me) because of what I spoke. The truth. Betraying me. Saying that I’m losing my mind. Saying that I’m crazy. … Those are my own household. All because of the Gospel. All because I said the truth.”
He said those suicidal thoughts came after breaking his fibula Jan. 1, 2025, when he was with the Detroit Pistons. The 24-year-old said it was the first major injury of his basketball career.
“I get surgery, I’m rehabbing, right?” Ivey said. “And I’m under this false doctrine of once saved, always saved. That you’re righteous, but it doesn’t matter if you sin, it can’t touch your soul.
“And so I still had no peace, and I went back and … during that time, I had my two children, and I was back in the world, back in the world again, trying to figure out what, what, what is the truth?”
Ivey, whose season was shut down Thursday while he manages left knee pain, has gone live on Instagram several times since the Bulls announced the news last week, delivering inflammatory comments about a variety of topics, including calling Catholicism “a false religion.” In his livestream Monday morning, he called the NBA’s advocacy for the LGBTQ+ community “unrighteous.” He was waived later that day.
Since being waived, he’s publicly criticized the personal and spiritual lives of NBA stars such as Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry, Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James and Minnesota Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards.
On Tuesday, he referenced an incident with Edwards from 2022, in which the Wolves guard posted a video to social media with homophobic comments. Edwards was later fined $40,000 by the NBA.
“He said those things, right, and they fined him for it,” Ivey said. “So how is it that he said something detrimental and basically hypocritical judgment? … He got fined. He didn’t get kicked out the league. He didn’t get waived, right? But it’s because he’s the best player on their team, right? They need him, right? He makes them money, right?
“It’s all money involved into that. That’s why he’s still playing.”
As Tuesday’s livestream interview continued, Ivey was asked about the possibility of continuing his basketball career, which appears to be at an impasse. Earlier in the day, it was announced that Ivey will receive his full $10.1 million salary for the 2025-26 season.
“If that opportunity came, it doesn’t matter if it’s in the NBA,” Ivey said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s — I know they don’t have it — but if it’s the CBA, if it’s overseas. It doesn’t matter. It could be the African league.”
Despite the Bulls saying Ivey was released for conduct detrimental to the team, Ivey rebutted the notion.
“I was a good teammate to those around me,” Ivey said. “I made the right plays. I did exactly what the coach asked me to do on a daily basis. Whatever was needed, whatever was required of me to do, I was willing.
“My conduct was not detrimental to the team. It’s strictly because I spoke the truth of the word of God and was preaching the gospel.”
After being traded from Detroit, Ivey played only four games with the Bulls, who sat him to allow him to rehab his surgically repaired left knee to build strength. He said the Bulls thought he was playing hurt, but he said it was how he had been playing all season with the Pistons.
Ivey said he rehabbed his knee for two weeks, but the Bulls pushed back his timetable. Then, in one practice with the team, he banged knees with forward Leonard Miller, and his left knee later swelled up before the swelling subsided.
“I said, ‘I’m ready. Jesus healed my knee,’” Ivey said.
Ivey said he offered to fly himself to Philadelphia for the team’s March 25 game. Instead, he got an MRI, and the team shut him down for the season March 26.
Four days later, the Bulls waived him after his series of online diatribes.
If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741.
