NBA star Jaylen Brown has publicly challenged claims made by the City of Beverly Hills after an event he hosted on the eve of the All-Star Game was shut down over an alleged lack of a permit.
The Boston Celtics player expressed his offence at the city's statement, telling ESPN: "I’m offended by Beverly Hills, by the statement they put out, like we applied for something and didn’t get it, and we did it anyway (and) we were insubordinate. I know how to follow the rules. I’m smart enough to follow the guidelines."
Hours prior, Beverly Hills had issued a statement to The Boston Globe, asserting that a permit application for the event, held at Oakley founder Jim Jannard’s home, had been rejected.
Brown has a sponsorship deal with Oakley, and the gathering was promoting his performance brand, 741.
The city's statement read: "An event permit had been applied for and denied by the City due to previous violations associated with events at the address.
“Despite the fact that the permit was denied, organisers still chose to proceed with inviting hundreds of guests knowing that it was not allowed to occur. BHPD responded and shut down the unpermitted event."
However, Brown directly countered this narrative.
He told ESPN: "That was not true. We didn’t need a permit because the owner of the house, that was his space. We were family friends. He opened up the festivities to us so we didn’t have to. We never applied for one."
The NBA All-Star Game took place on Sunday night and ended in a resounding victory for Team USA Stars.
After a series of close games in the round-robin stage of the competition, it was the Stars who cruised past the Team USA Stripes by a margin of 47-21 at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California.
