Kai Cenat Loses It Over LeBron James' Surprise Gift

Originally posted on Athlon Sports | By Josh Valdez | Last updated Sep 30, 2025 9:15 PM ET

Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James has been in the spotlight since the turn of the century when he showed off his basketball talent at St. Vincent-St. Mary's High School in Akron, Ohio. Meanwhile, fellow celebrity Kai Cenat, who followed a different career path, was born around that time.

Cenat dropped out of the State University of New York at Morrisville in 2020 to become a full-time content creator. The New York native first uploaded YouTube videos in 2018 centering around pranks and challenges before migrating to Twitch in 2021.

Cenat gained notoriety for his gaming and reaction content shortly after. He then started to have celebrity guests on his streams in 2022, and he's now the most followed Twitch streamer alive, via Win.gg.

That led to worlds colliding when James visited Cenat's stream on Tuesday. The 40-year-old hooper made it a memorable appearance, as he gifted the young content creator and his friends pairs of his unreleased LeBron 23 sneakers, SoleRetreiver on X.

Cenat and company collectively freaked out when James pulled out the shoes before they all put the kicks to their ears and pretended to be on the phone.

James also cut Cenat's hair on stream, via Cenat's X. James is now beginning training camp with the Lakers in his record-breaking 23rd NBA season, but he's still having fun before the preseason starts.

LeBron pulled up to Kai Cenat’s stream and blessed the whole crew with LeBron 23s @KingJames @KaiCenat pic.twitter.com/GFvIjob2qs
— Sole Retriever (@SoleRetriever) September 30, 2025

LeBron James is No Stranger to Pop Culture

James has had a pop culture presence his entire career. For example, the four-time NBA champion has starred in movies such as "Trainwreck" and "Space Jam: A New Legacy" while also producing "The Shop," which is his personal talk show on HBO Max with friend and business partner Maverick Carter. The duo uses the "barbershop" trope of people having group conversations while getting their hair cut. Past guests include Jay-Z, Travis Scott, Drake, Lamar Jackson, Donald Glover and Bad Bunny.

James also has over 200 million followers across his social media platforms and regularly gets millions of views on his posts. For example, the future Hall of Famer reposted Cenat's announcement of their joint stream on Tuesday night, which got 2.6 million X views in just four hours.

James' involvement with Cenat is an evolution of what he's always done, which is keep up with modern pop culture trends. Streaming is now one of the most popular forms of content creation online, and the Lakers forward is embracing that.

This article first appeared on Athlon Sports and was syndicated with permission.

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