Michael Jordan Was Once Asked For Autograph In Bathroom After Bulls Landed At Airport

According to Will Perdue, NBA icon Michael Jordan was once asked for an autograph while he was in the bathroom after the Chicago Bulls landed at an airport. 

A fan slipped a piece of paper and a pen under the bathroom stall and asked Jordan for his signature and Perdue and his teammates couldn’t believe it.

“One of the funniest things was we’re flying somewhere, get to wherever we’re going, we get off the plane,” Perdue said in 2021 on the Bulls Talk Podcast. “As all men know, you get off the plane, first thing you do is you just beeline it to the bathroom. We all come running in and everybody is standing at the urinals and Michael walks in and (sighs). So then he’s gotta go into a stall, right. Closes the door.

“So obviously, this guy (fan) thinks that well, he’s going to be in there for a while, takes a piece of paper and a pen and sticks it up underneath the door, and goes, ‘Hey, man, you’re gonna be in there for a while. Do you mind signing this?’ And of course, now we’re all sitting there with our heads turned. We’re like, ‘You gotta be kidding me.’”

Jordan was arguably the most popular celebrity in the world during the ’90s. The shooting guard was so recognizable that he couldn’t fill his car with gas, go to movies with his family or head to the mall without getting bombarded by fans.

The beginning of Episode 6 of ESPN’s “The Last Dance” docuseries shows an old Jordan commercial where the NBA legend talks about his life not being as fun as everybody thinks it is. If you value your privacy, being Jordan would have been a nightmare.

“It’s funny, a lot of people say they’d like to be Michael Jordan for a day or for a week, but let them try to be Michael Jordan for a year, see if they like it,” Jordan said in the commercial. “I don’t think you can see the true Michael Jordan for just a day. I don’t think they quite understand it’s no fun.”

The only time Jordan experienced peace was when he was at home with his family or in his hotel room on the road. Other than those two venues, Jordan was under pressure to be on all the time with people and Bulls senior director of public and media relations, Tim Hallam, saw it first-hand in the ’90s.

Almost everyone wanted to be like Jordan, which is why Gatorade came out with the “Be like Mike” commercial. However, Hallam was one of the select few people who knew being Jordan was an “impossible task.”

“I think what people don’t realize is that from the moment Michael Jordan leaves his hotel room, the spotlight is on him,” Hallam said in The Last Dance. “Everybody in the world wanted to either see him, talk to him. They all wanted a piece of him in some way or another. He was under pressure to be on all the time with people. I wouldn’t want to be like Mike. It’s an impossible task.”

Jordan is arguably the best player in NBA history. He won six championships, six Finals MVPs, five regular-season MVPs and 10 scoring titles with the Bulls in the ’90s. The Bulls three-peated twice and went 6-0 in the Finals during the Jordan era.