Carmelo Anthony’s Ex-Wife La La Unveils Sour Side of Son Kiyan’s Raging Fame: “It Does Get Hard for Him”

NBA legend Carmelo Anthony‘s 16-year-old son Kiyan is a budding basketball talent and one of the most famous players of his age. He has received offers from 11 Division programs including Memphis, Providence, and more interestingly, Syracuse. His name and his promising on-court time are resulting in his off-court prospects soaring. Young athletes do encounter this, but it comes at a cost with one’s newfound fame making it hard to cope. This is something that La La Anthony has identified and aimed to mitigate by educating her son.

Carmelo Anthony’s son, a four-star shooting guard in the 2025 class, already has 950,000 followers on social media, with 766,000 on Instagram alone. La La Anthony spoke about the same in an interview.

“He’s got almost a million followers! He’s not addicted to posting or anything like that, but he loves to put up his highlights from games or his workout routines. It’s important, especially now that he’s starting to visit colleges. You want people to know what you’re doing. It does get hard for him sometimes when it’s time to move around,” said La La to PEOPLE.

Her concern revolves around the fact that every time he sets foot outside, he is being stopped for pictures by people who watch him play or are from the media business. Considering that Kiyan is moving to five-star status with his stock only set to soar, the follower count will increase as his fame spreads. While his mom is nothing but proud of everything Kiyan is doing, she shed light on how she is keeping up with the latest trends to help her son navigate his world.

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La La Anthony is aiming to understand social media and guide her son

La La Anthony touched on this subject in her appearance on Jemele Hill is Unbothered in November. The evolving times and Kiyan’s career make the social media presence inevitable, but the 16-year-old, per his mother, is not someone who wants to be in front of the camera.

She also said, ” I want to understand so I can have educated conversation with him about what his world looks like. Because it is very different from you know when I grew up, especially the social media piece of it all, especially now playing basketball and getting so much attention from that. I didn’t have that growing up and then having parents who you know are known as well. That’s totally different. So just helping him navigate through things that are completely different from you know when I grew up.”

Kiyan made a good start to his Junior year with a 26-point outing as his parents watched from the sidelines. It remains to be seen how he does on the court and potentially improves his prospects for college or the NBA. However, off the court, it is clear that he is being groomed in the right way to navigate the challenges of fame.

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