Draya Michele is pushing back against the backlash aimed at her relationship with 23-year-old NBA player Jalen Green, calling out what she sees as blatant age-based double standards.
At 40, the entrepreneur and reality star found herself the subject of a viral TikTok critique from creator Boujeebrownskin, who compared her dynamic with Green to that of a “mother and son.” A lighthearted video sparked the comments the couple filmed for Whistle’s Home Team quiz series, where they tested how well they knew one another.
In the TikTok, the creator accused Draya of “leaning into” their age gap and said, “It’s clear you are leaning into this intentional age gap that y’all have, and I think that’s pretty f**king weird.” He went further, claiming that if the roles were reversed and Draya were a man, the public would label her a “pedophile.”
The moment that seemed to trigger the most online reaction was Draya joking that she has had her driver’s license for as long as Jalen has been alive. But Draya wasn’t having it.
She clapped back in the comments, pointing out the hypocrisy in the criticism. “One more thing… this is AGEIST!! No different from being homophobic, you can’t be woke about one thing, babe, and not the other,” she wrote. “Discrimination is discrimination. Imagine if somebody told you [you] couldn’t love who you wanted to because they felt like it was ‘wrong.’”
Instead of backing down, the TikTok creator doubled down in another post, saying, “You really could’ve been just fking on that boy in peace running up that NBA check, living your best fking life but because you’re so desperate for attention, you decided to flaunt your relationship to the world, and now the world has opinions.”
Yikes.
Despite the noise on socials, Draya seems unfazed. Her response signals a refusal to let public judgment dictate her personal life.