Cindy Ord/Getty; Michael Gonzales/NBAE via Getty Kendall Jenner, Devin Booker
Devin Booker is happy and he’s not afraid to share it.
In a new interview with WSJ. Magazine, the Phoenix Suns guard was asked if being in the “public eye” as both an athlete and also the boyfriend of Kendall Jenner is “hard.”
“I wouldn’t say hard,” the 25-year-old NBA athlete said in response. “Honestly, I’m enjoying life to the fullest, and that came off my tongue so easily because it wasn’t always this way, but I feel like I’m in a good place right now.”
Continued Booker, “I love my family, I love the people around me, and I love the impact that I get to have on this world, the younger generation under me and the kids who look up to me.
Jenner and Booker made their relationship Instagram official on Valentine’s Day 2021 after rumors of a romance through most of 2020. Last February, a source told PEOPLE that Jenner’s family approved of Booker as her boyfriend.
“What first seemed like a fun hookup, is now a relationship,” the source said at the time. “They are exclusive and Kendall is very happy with Devin.”
The couple then celebrated their one-year anniversary in mid-June 2021. A short time later, a source told PEOPLE that their relationship was continually growing stronger.
In his interview with WSJ. Magazine, Booker also spoke about some well-heeded advice he received from late NBA icon Kobe Bryant. Booker said Bryant, who was 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁ed in a 2020 helicopter crash, told him to “be legendary.”
“He left it with a mark on my shoe and he wrote it out, ‘be legendary,’ ” recounted Booker. “And not only did he write it on the shoe and sign it for me, but just talking me through it and talking through the steps that it’s going to take to get there. Kobe’s always been an inspiration, so hearing it in his voice and seeing it in his handwriting on the shoes keeps me motivated.”
In fact, Booker got the message tattooed on his body — his first-ever ink. He told the outlet, “Any glimpse I can see of it, any photo where I look and I’m shooting the ball and I see it, it’s a perfect reminder for me.”