The basketball player formally known as Ron Artest changed his birth name way back in 2011 to Metta World Peace, but that has been around long enough for him to make another drastic change.
It was reported this week that the former Defensive Player of the Year is now going by the name Metta Sandiford-Artest following his marriage to Maya Sandiford, he revealed on Sunday’s episode of “Inside the Green Room with Danny Green.”
He gave some more insight into his first name change.
“Actually, the first game I had with ‘World Peace,’ I was like, ‘This is the dumbest thing ever,'” Sandiford-Artest recalled. “I was coming off the bench at that time, 2011, and they say, ‘Metta World Peace,’ and I remember not wanting to take off my warm-up. … It was embarrassing.”
“World Peace” was plastered on the back of his jersey until his retirement from the NBA in 2017.
“I was one of those people that – I loved attention,” Sandiford-Artest explained. “When I see Ochocinco change his name four years before I did mine, I’m like, ‘Yo, that’s dope. I have to do that.’
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“Originally, it was going to be ‘Queensbridge’ and then ‘So Hood.’ And then you evolve a little bit, and you’re like, ‘Nah, I’m not going to do that.'”
