Michael Jordan Concerned That 'Last Dance' Doc Will Make People Think He's A "Horrible Guy"

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The 10-part documentary will air on ESPN April 19.

With The Last Dance documentary set to air on ESPN April 19, fans will soon be getting an intimate look into Michael Jordan's last season with the Chicago Bulls in 1997-98. However, Jordan himself has expressed concern over how people may think of him after watching the 10-part doc.

WATCH: Check Out ESPN’s Trailer For Michael Jordan ‘The Last Dance’ Documentary

In an interview with The Athletic, director Jason Hehir recalled meeting Jordan about the documentary in 2017, and how the famed athlete was worried about how the footage would make him look to viewers. Per The Athletic:

"When people see this footage I'm not sure they're going to be able to understand why I was so intense, why I did the things I did, why I acted the way I acted, and why I said the things I said. ... When you see the footage of [me riding with Scotty Burrell], you're going to think that I'm a horrible guy. But you have to realize that the reason why I was treating him like that is because I needed him to be tough in the playoffs and we're facing the Indiana's and Miami's and New York's in the Eastern Conference. He needed to be tough and I needed to know that I could count on him. And those are the kind of things where people see me acting the way I acted in practice, they're not going to understand it."

Hehir shared that he had reassured Jordan that he would be able to explain himself in the documentary.

The article also offered a hint at what's to come in the documentary, highlighting how, in the seventh part of the project, Jordan justifies his mentality on winning:

"Look, winning has a price. And leadership has a price. So I pulled people along when they didn't want to be pulled. I challenged people when they didn't want to be challenged. And I earned that right because my teammates who came after me didn't endure all the things that I endured. Once you joined the team, you lived at a certain standard that I played the game. And I wasn't going to take any less. Now if that means I had to go in there and get in your ass a little bit, then I did that. You ask all my teammates. The one thing about Michael Jordan was he never asked me to do something that he didn't f--king do. When people see this they are going say, 'Well he wasn't really a nice guy. He may have been a tyrant.' Well, that's you. Because you never won anything. I wanted to win, but I wanted them to win to be a part of that as well. Look, I don't have to do this. I am only doing it because it is who I am. That's how I played the game. That was my mentality. If you don't want to play that way, don't play that way."

A trailer for the forthcoming documentary was released in December last year.