A Timeline of LeBron and Savannah James’s Decades-Long Romance

LeBron and Savannah met in 2002 when they were both students in Akron, Ohio. Savannah was a 16-year-old sophomore at Buchtel High School, while LeBron was a 17-year-old junior at St. Vincent-St. Mary, per The Independent.

In 2017, Savannah told Cleveland Magazine that it all started when a friend told her LeBron wanted her number. “I’m like, ‘Um, nope. I’ll take his number,'” she said. “One day I’m sitting around, I was probably bored or something, and I’m like, ‘Oh, I forgot! I have this number for this guy that I can call. He seemed interested, so let’s see.'”

LeBron soon invited her to one of his basketball games, followed by a group dinner at Applebees, People reported. The pair then went on a solo date at Outback Steakhouse.

LeBron was drafted into the NBA in 2003. A year later, Savannah – who was still in high school – discovered she was pregnant. She told Cleveland Magazine that LeBron supported her through everything. “I was thinking, ‘What am I going to tell my parents? What’s going to happen to his career?'” she recalled. “I was very scared. I was bawling. But he said: ‘It’s not going to slow me down, and it’s not going to slow you down. We’re going to keep doing what we have to do.'”

Their first child, LeBron “Bronny” James Jr., was born on Oct. 6, 2004.

The pair’s second child, Bryce, arrived on June 14, 2007. In 2017, LeBron gave Vogue a window into the family’s home life, saying that Savannah is the head of their household. “I’m gone a lot, so she is the boss of the household; she’s the rule-setter,” he said. “It’s hard for me to go on the road for two and half weeks and then come home and tell my kids, ‘Look, this is how it should be done,’ when she’s been home every day.”

LeBron asked Savannah to marry him on New Year’s Eve in 2011, per The Independent. He opened up about his decision to propose in a 2012 interview with Oprah Winfrey. “I had been thinking about it, you know, for a while but it just came to me one day and I was like, ‘This is a part of growth for me,'” he said. “And this is the lady, the woman, I’ve been with, through all the good and all the bad. She’s been there for a long time and I wanted her to continue to be there with me, so I felt like at that moment it was time.”

LeBron and Savannah tied the knot on Sept. 14, 2013, at the Capella Chapel at the Grand Del Mar hotel in San Diego, CA. Some of their wedding guests included Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, and Gabrielle Union.

The pair’s third child, Zhuri Nova, was born on Oct. 22, 2014. “My daughter is the greatest thing in my life, along with my boys,” LeBron said at the 2021 “Space Jam: A New Legacy” premiere, per Access Hollywood.

On Feb. 7, 2023, Savannah brought her and LeBron’s three kids to the Los Angeles Lakers vs. the Oklahoma City Thunder game where LeBron beat Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s scoring record of 38,387 career points. “I witness day in and day out the hard work, the sacrifice, and the professionalism that you put into this game every single day,” Savannah said of her husband in a celebratory video. “You should congratulate yourself, you should celebrate yourself, you deserve all the flowers, you deserve all the respect, and I just want to tell you how proud of you I am.”