Meet Oscar winner Michael B. Jordan’s supportive parents, Donna and Michael A. Jordan
Michael B. Jordan is now an Oscar winner – but what do we know about his parents, for whom he bought a home in Sherman Oaks, California, in 2015?
Jordan is the sixth Black male actor to win in the best actor category and paid homage to them in his acceptance speech. “I stand here because of the people that came before me: Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, Halle Berry, Jamie Foxx, Forest Whitaker, Will Smith,” he said. Berry won best actress in 2002.
He also thanked his mother Donna and his father Michael A. Jordan, who he said flew in from Ghana to attend the Oscars.
Both Jordan’s parents and his two siblings, Khalid and Jamila, joined the actor on the red carpet ahead of the event. In fact, his mother was the first person Jordan called after learning that he had been nominated for the award, as per People.
They don’t have a Hollywood background
Despite their son being one of the most recognised names in Hollywood, Donna and Michael A. Jordan had humble beginnings. Michael Sr worked as a supervisor at John F. Kennedy Airport in Queens, New York, and later catered lunches at Chad in New Jersey, a private tuition-based school founded by the Black Youth Organization in the 1960s, per Vanity Fair. Donna was a social worker at the same school, and Michael Jr and his siblings attended junior high there.