Angel Reese’s Viral Flau’jae Johnson Handshake Snub Has Family Context

Toward the end of the Seattle Storm's 105-90 win over the Atlanta Dream on June 27, Storm rookie guard Flau'jae Johnson tried to give Dream star forward Angel Reese daps.

Reese snubbed her handshake, which has since gone extremely viral.

Flau'jae Johnson tried to give her former LSU teammate Angel Reese a handshake with more than a minute left in the game.

Friday's matchup was their first meeting as opponents in the WNBA. pic.twitter.com/68ZosBObKl
— ESPN (@espn) June 28, 2026

These two played at LSU together, won a national championship while there, and were extremely close friends. Therefore, seeing this exchange between Reese and Flau'jae was upsetting for many, especially because there is previous context that leads many to suspect the snub from Reese might be more than just being upset about the loss.

How Angel Reese and Flau'jae Johnson's History Led to the Reaction

During a September 2024 episode of her "Unapologetically Angel" podcast, Reese admitted that her friendship with Johnson had deteriorated since their time at LSU together.

"I still support Flau'jae. We aren't as close as we used to be," Reese said. "And there's no hard feelings or anything, but we aren't as close as we used to be... It happens. You don't have the best relationships with everybody and don't always continue relationships with people... But yeah, there's no love lost. But we aren't as close as we used to be."

Johnson spoke with The Breakfast Club in June of 2025 and addressed her and Reese's relationship, saying, "We're not friends, but... You can never take that [national championship] away from us. And so sometimes stuff happens, you wish it don't happen, but it [does]."

When asked whether she and Reese aren't friends because of conversations with "their people", Flau'jae said, "Yeah. It was a lot of media, it was a lot of locker room stuff, you know what I'm saying? Stuff that [goes] on behind the scenes. But it happens. It happens. "

Flau’jae on why she and Angel Reese aren’t friends: “It was a lot of media, it was a lot of locker room stuff” 🤔 #WNBATwitter pic.twitter.com/Yia7YjzBrB
— Africana (@CC22_sis) June 9, 2025

While one can't say for certain what Flau'jae was referring to, there was an exchange between her and Reese's mothers on social media during their final season at LSU together that might have started the strain between them.

Reese was benched in the second half of an LSU game early in that season because of what head coach Kim Mulkey called a "coach's decision". Reese took a leave of absence from the team after this, for reasons that were never specified. Rumors surfaced afterwards that Reese might have been dealing with academic eligibility issues at the time, but that was never confirmed.

One source of these rumors was Flau'jae's mother, Kia Brooks. Several days after Reese's second-half benching, Reese’s mother, Angel Webb Reese, shared a message on her Instagram story that complained about text messages with grammatical errors in them.

Brooks believed Reese's mom was speaking about Flau'jae, as she responded with her own Instagram story that read, “You definitely know about grammar errors when your daughter got a 2.0 or less GPA... Stop being petty, fake and hateful, and take responsibility for you and your daughter’s actions."

Y'all see what Flaujae's mother posted to IG??? Who has the tea?? pic.twitter.com/E1jmoBOSiF
— Clark Bar (@clarkscores) November 15, 2023

There's no way of knowing for sure whether this social media drama between their mothers is what led to Reese and Flau'jae's strained relationship, or why Reese snubbed Flau'jae's handshake on June 27.

But this family context adds some insight about what have gotten both players to this relationship state.

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