When he was an NBA rookie in 2014, Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid drew a lot of laughs when he revealed that a ‘famous girl’ he was trying to get with savagely rejected him, telling him to come back when he was an All-Star. That story ended with Embiid having the last laugh.

Fast-forward to 2018, when JoJo was named the starting center for the Eastern Conference All-Star team. After his selection became official, Embiid was asked by a reporter after his 26-16-6 performance against the Boston Celtics right before All-Star weekend if he wanted to say something to anybody now that he’s an All-Star.

“She denied me back then; there’s no reason to go back to her,” he said. “So I gotta move on to the next one. There’s a lot of pretty women out there, and I’m beautiful, so I gotta move on to the next one.”

JoJo had a big crush on RiRi

Embiid did not mention who the famous girl was. However, when he started in the NBA, it was no surprise that The Process had a big crush on Rihanna.

Joel began his NBA career on the sidelines due to injury. Because he couldn’t play on the court, he found himself busy on social media. That’s when he revealed that his ultimate crush was Kim Kardashian. However, since Kim K. was with Kanye West during that period, Embiid turned his attention to Rihanna.

Although JoJo got a boost when RiRi followed him on social media and liked one of his tweets about taking her to dinner, nothing came out of his Twitter advances. A couple of months later, he tweeted about the ‘famous girl’ rejecting him. By December, it seemed Joel had given up after the closest he got to a date with the ‘Umbrella’ singer was photoshopping her image beside his.

Embiid was worth the wait for the Sixers

On October 26, 2016, Joel made his longest-awaited debut for the Philadelphia 76ers, scoring 20 points while grabbing 7 rebounds and blocking 2 shots. Although they lost that game to the OKC Thunder, the Sixers were glad with what they saw.

Joel made the 2017 All-Rookie team after averaging 20.2 points and 7.8 rebounds per game in 31 games played. One season later, he became the first Sixers player to start an All-Star game since Allen Iverson in 2010. But Joel chose to move forward instead of shooting his shot at the lady who asked him to come back when he earned his first All-Star game appearance.

The next thing we knew, Embiid was in a relationship with Brazilian model Anne de Paula. The couple got married last year. Meanwhile, Rihanna has been with American rapper ASAP Rocky since 2019.