Some couples have great meet-cute stories to tell at parties. It’s a pretty safe bet, though, that if it were a competition, no one would be able to top Teyana Taylor and Iman Shumpert‘s tale, which involves Justin Bieber, celebrity basketball, and Spike Tee’s stellar defensive instincts.
Taylor recounted the thrilling yarn during her appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Thursday night to promote her new movie A Thousand And One, which apparently has a 100 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. After she recalled her first meeting with Beyoncé (to teach her the Chicken Noodle Soup dance), Kimmel pulled out a photo of Taylor with Justin Bieber that was taken during a celebrity basketball game. In it, Bieber’s dribbling while being chased by Taylor, both grimacing from the effort.
“I was on his ass,” Taylor joked. “He was kinda showing off ’cause he knew he was good. I said, ‘Oh yeah? Aight, bet.’… But that was the very moment that my husband fell in love with me. He’s like, ‘Who is that girl? Her defense is on point!’” She said the similarity between them — Shumpert was known as a defensive specialist during his NBA days — got his attention but she made his pursuit… well, interesting.
“Even though he was feeling [me] this day, he didn’t get me that day!” she proclaimed. She explained, though, that it was three years before she agreed to go out with him. He remained persistent and they became friends and business partners (Taylor took on Shumpert as a styling client), but after getting to know him — and see him with his shirt off — they fell in love.
You can watch the full interview above.