The Chicago Bulls waived Jaden Ivey on Monday after the guard made anti-LGBT statements in a series of lengthy religious tirades on Instagram.
Ivey spoke for more than three hours in total during three separate Instagram livestreams over the last week, the first of which took place several hours after the Bulls shut the guard down for the rest of the season with a knee injury. In his latest session Monday afternoon, Ivey criticized the NBA for hosting Pride nights to celebrate the LGBT community.
“They show it to the world,” Ivey said during an Instagram Live session on Monday. “They say come join us for Pride Month to celebrate unrighteousness. They proclaim it. They proclaim it on the billboards. They proclaim it in the streets. Unrighteousness. So how it is that one can’t speak righteousness? How are they to say that this man is crazy?”
Several hours later, the Bulls made the decision to waive the guard, who was in the final weeks of his contract. In a statement, the organization referred to “conduct detrimental to the team.”
Coach Billy Donovan voiced concern for Ivey’s well-being ahead of Monday’s game against the San Antonio Spurs, but emphasized the importance of Bulls players and staff upholding a code of conduct that represents the entire franchise.
“We have people from all different walks of life working in the building,” Donovan said. “The first thing is, everybody comes with their own personal experiences but we’ve all got to be professional. There’s got to be a high level of respect for one another and we’ve got to help each other and be accountable to those standards. From ownership in Jerry and Michael (Reinsdorf) down to Artūras (Karnišovas) and Marc (Eversley) in the front office and me as a coach and even to the players, there’s a certain standard that we want to all live by and we’re all responsible to that standard.”
Chicago Bulls guard Jaden Ivey pulls down a rebound in the first half of a game against the Denver Nuggets at the United Center in Chicago on Feb. 7, 2026. (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune)
Ivey livestreamed on his Instagram account on three separate occasions on March 26, 28 and 30. The video on March 28 extended over an hour. In the comments, Ivey argued with fans using Bible verses and accused several of being sinners for their beliefs and lifestyles.
“Catholicism is a false religion,” Ivey wrote in one Instagram comment, responding to a fan who asked if he went to confession.
Throughout the latter two videos, Ivey spoke to the camera while driving his car and rambling through various evangelical talking points.
During this time, Donovan said that Ivey never missed a scheduled workout or exhibited any behavior that warranted alarm within the organization, but noted that he was receiving these reports from staff back home in Chicago, where Ivey was rehabbing with the medical team.
Although the decision to waive Ivey came directly after he made anti-LGBT statements, the Bulls front office was alarmed by the entire scope of the guard’s diatribes over the last week. Donovan acknowledged that the tone and tenor of Ivey’s statements also could raise concern for the guard’s mental health.
“Mental health is a real issue,” Donovan said. “You have to, in today’s day and age, be conscientious that all these guys may be going through things. I’m not passing judgment on what Jaden is or is not going through, but I do know that I always worry about that, not only for Jaden but for all of our players.”
The Bulls acquired Ivey at the trade deadline in a three-team trade that involved sending Kevin Huerter to the Detroit Pistons. Although Ivey was coming to the end of a four-year $32.95 million contract, the Bulls front office hoped to be the first team in line for the guard’s restricted free agency this summer.
Ivey was an exciting prospect in his early years with the Pistons, but his career was derailed in January 2025 when he suffered a gruesome broken leg in a game against the Orlando Magic. His rehabilitation lasted nearly a year and the guard still hadn’t recovered his former explosivity when he was traded to the Bulls in February.
The guard played extensive minutes in his first four games with the Bulls until Feb. 19, when he was held out of a game as a coach’s decision while Donovan was away from the team following his father’s funeral. After the game, Ivey explained that he was still dealing with knee pain in his left leg in between rambling diversions in which he referred to himself in the third person, stating the “old J.I. was dead” and repeatedly shifted basketball questions back to religious topics.
This aspect of Ivey’s locker room demeanor was well known in Detroit, where several sources said the guard became increasingly vocal about his faith over the years. Ivey and his wife, Caitlyn, were baptized in their backyard pool in June 2024. Staffers and media members became familiar with the guard’s insistence on steering conversations back toward his evangelical Christian beliefs, even if those answers did not relate to the topic at hand.
Donovan noted that Ivey was “pretty outspoken about his faith” during his initial days in Chicago, but didn’t consider those habits to be concerning at the time.
“I think that’s a personal thing,” Donovan said.
Ivey is the son of Notre Dame women’s basketball coach Niele Ivey and former Notre Dame football wide receiver Javin Hunter. He was born in South Bend, Ind., and played his college ball for Purdue before the Pistons drafted him in 2022.