Steph Curry has one younger brother, NBA star Seth Curry, as well as a younger sister. His sister, named Sydel Curry, was born on October 20, 1994. The three siblings grew up with their parents Dell and Sonya Curry in Charlotte, North Carolina, and are still very close to this day.
Here’s what you need to know about Steph Curry’s sister Sydel Curry:
1. Sydel Curry Was a College Volleyball Player But Spoke About the Struggles of Having a Famous Family
Sydel Curry-Lee grew up with her two older brothers in Charlotte, North Carolina, and while they were both hooked on basketball, she began playing volleyball instead. In her NCSA recruiting profile, she wrote that she was attending Charlotte Christian School and had been playing volleyball since she was in 7th grade and loved it.
“This past high school season I was captain but even as a freshman I’ve had a strong leadership presence on the team,” she wrote during her junior year. “I received 1st team all-state award and 1st team all-conference.”
The youngest Curry ended up attending North Carolina’s Elon University, where she played on the college team as a setter. During her college volleyball career, she was named to the NCCSIA First Team All-State in 2016, the same year she was named the team’s MVP, her university bio states.
Unfortunately, her playing career was cut short as Sydel Curry announced her decision to retire in February 2017 after picking up an injury. “I never thought that my first grown up decision about my future would be something so difficult,” she said at the time, according to Elon News Network.
“I have dedicated so much of my life, my identity to my sport,” she continued. “As an athlete and a competitor, I will always want to put my sport before a lot of things.” The publication reported that she was set to graduate with a psychology degree.
Sydel Curry has been open about her struggle as an athlete because of her famous name, telling Togethxr in an interview that she often felt like her accomplishments were downplayed or undervalued. “People underestimating me is pretty much my life from the moment I started playing sports to now,” she said in 2021. “I remember one of the first things I ever heard when I was playing volleyball is, ‘You’re only here because of your family.'”
She said throughout college, she heard people whispering “Oh, that’s Steph Curry’s sister.” When she was in college, Curry had already won an NBA championship and been named the NBA’s MVP, in 2015. “No, I’m not Steph Curry’s sister, I’m Sydel Curry,” she shared emphatically. She said she did a lot of work to create her own identity apart from her famous brothers.
2. Sydel Curry Is a Mental Health Advocate Who Has Been Open About Her Own Mental Health Journey
Sydel Curry, who has over 700,000 Instagram followers, is using her platform to discuss mental health and the importance of being open and empathetic to mental health struggles.
Sydel Curry has been open in the past few years about her mental health and the ups and downs that she goes through. She launched a podcast titled “Because Life” that aims to “de-stigmatize the discussion around mental health and offer first-hand advice on how we can all discuss the subject better as well as things we can do to improve our mental health,” its description states.
She told Essence in 2020 that she wanted to use her platform to “change the stigma behind [people] being not being able to speak about how you’re feeling and not being in a culture where social media is just about jokes and people not taking other people seriously.” She added, “People actually need to be empathetic towards others and sympathize with others and just be open to talking and communicating.”
In October 2022, Sydel Curry posted an update on her YouTube channel explaining that she’d taken a step back from podcasting and sharing updates as she was adapting to motherhood and juggling it with her other responsibilities.
3. Sydel Curry Is Married to NBA Star Damion Lee & the Couple Has a Son Together
Sydel Curry’s brothers and father aren’t the only NBA stars in her family as she is also married to Pheonix Suns shooting guard Damion Lee. The youngest Curry met her future husband in 2013 when she was still in university and playing volleyball. She said she met Lee, who was then at Drexel University, at a college basketball game. “He was walking up the stairs, I was sitting in the stands and we kind of made eye contact,” she told Munaluchi Bride.
For his part, Lee said he “couldn’t forget that face” and reached out to her on social media. The DMs turned to some dates, four in five days to be exact, and the rest is history. “I knew from the date, from our first date,” she told Essence. “He was nobody that I had ever met. He was just so different in a sense that I couldn’t read him. He was such a gentleman on our first date. Wouldn’t let me walk close to the street when we were walking together. He was just such so sweet. So from day one of us going on our date I knew I wanted to be with him,” she gushed.
Lee ended up proposing to Sydel Curry in 2017, which she said was a complete surprise. “I thought that it would take him forever to ask me to marry him because it felt like it took him forever to ask me to be his girlfriend,” she shared with the publication.
The happy couple got married on September 1, 2018, in Charlotte, North Carolina. Both of her brothers were groomsmen at the wedding while Curry’s wife Ayesha Curry was the bride’s matron of honor. Steph and Ayesha Curry’s daughters Riley and Ryan were flower girls for the special day.
Lee signed with the Golden State Warriors in 2018, where he played four seasons with his brother-in-law Curry and they won the 2022 NBA championship together. Afterward, he signed with the Phoenix Suns and has been playing with the team throughout the 2022-23 season.
Sydel Curry and Lee welcomed their first child, a son named Daxon Wardell-Xavier Lee, on November 26, 2021.
4. Sydel Curry Launched Her Own Brand & YouTube Channel Titled ‘A Curry Girl’
In addition to her work as a mental health advocate, Sydel Curry has several other initiatives on the go. She launched her own brand, A Curry Girl, which is a lifestyle website where she blogs about mental health, beauty and fitness.
“This year, I’m putting myself out there,” she told Andscape. “I have true anxiety issues, which is partly why I’m a homebody. But more than anything, I’m an ordinary girl that just wants to create my own extraordinary experiences.” She also posts regular vlogs on her YouTube channel, which has 100,00 subscribers and over 8 million total views to date. Her videos include everything from her mental health discussions to her journey to motherhood through IVF.
In 2018, she told Andscape that her professional goal for the next five to 10 years was to become a marriage and family therapist. The psychology grad shared, “I’ve always had a passion for people and knew I wanted to be a counselor. It’s important that we really nurture ourselves and relationships, and sometimes we need someone to lead the way.”
5. Sydel Curry Shared That She Had Reservations About Steph Curry’s Wife When She First Met Her But They Are Now Best Friends
Sydel Curry grew up with two brothers but she told Mercury News that Curry’s wife, Ayesha Curry, is the “sister I never had.” It wasn’t always that way though, as she also admitted that she didn’t think the relationship was going to work when she first heard about it.
She said her brother and Ayesha Curry first met at their church youth group and since they were both shy and quiet, they didn’t speak much. Ayesha Curry would flirt with her brother by bringing him candy but barely said two words. “I would look at her like ‘God, she’s so lame,’” Sydel Curry admitted. “He clearly liked it. It left an impression.”
Years later, Ayesha and Steph Curry reconnected and the Warriors star began bringing her to his house. The family shared with Mercury News that the Curry matriarch, Sonya Curry, had eight women over for a women’s Bible study. All of them sized up Curry’s girlfriend out of a feeling of protectiveness for him. “She came into kind of a hostile thing,” Sonya Curry revealed.
Sydel Curry admitted that she wasn’t sure Ayesha Curry would be the girl for his brother because she didn’t think anyone was good enough for her oldest brother. Despite having her doubts, the youngest Curry admitted that it only took about a week for Ayesha Curry to win her over and said she’s now her “best friend” and “sister.”
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Sydel Curry, Steph Curry’s Sister: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know