Graffiti Artist Jokes That Kobe Bryant May Have Defaced LeBron James’ ‘King of LA’ Mural

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bk6C4w9l-cJ/?taken-by=never1959

A mural in Los Angeles, CA of recently added Lakers player LeBron James was defaced only a few days after it was created.

After the announcement of the three-time NBA champion joining the Los Angeles Lakers, artists Jonas Never and Menso decided to make the incredible artwork on the side of Baby Blues BBQ in the Venice, Los Angeles. “Welcome to LA, Lebron! Thanks to @babybluesbbq for the wall and my boy @mensoone for the lettering,” Never said in a caption on Instagram. The mural shows James in a Lakers jersey with the text “The King of LA.”

The statement “The King of LA” didn’t go over well with a few Lakers fans, including Twitter user @BenOsaze who encouraged his followers to vandalize the mural. He tweeted, “I’m offering $300 to anyone who destroys this mural and shares a video. The mural is located at Baby Blues BBQ- Lincoln Blvd Venice, CA 9029.” It appears someone accepted the challenge and defaced the mural with the texts, “We dont want you”, “Le Fraud”, “3-6”, “No King.”

Image taken from twitter user: @KingJamesSZN

The challenge to deface James’ mural did come at a cost. Twitter users rallied to have the user expelled from Twitter. As of now, @BenOsaze page has been deleted.

https://twitter.com/KingJamesSZN/status/1016075630566227968

The mural was quickly repaired. Never shared the restored version but removed the word “of.” The artist joked that Kobe Bryant may have been the culprit. “Doesn’t look too “ruined” to me… but nice try. Considering how tall the scribbles were I almost feel like Kobe did it haha. Either way we got rid of the offending “of.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bk_CkYXleU-/?utm_source=ig_embed

 

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