LeBron James reveals truth behind Pat Riley cookie fiasco during Heat run

That’s the way the cookie crumbled with LeBron James.

During an appearance Wednesday on “The Pat McAfee Show,” James reflected on a wild story recently shared by former Heat teammate Dwyane Wade, who claimed team president Pat Riley once took James’ cookies away on the team plane.

“It’s a true story,” said James, who was a soon-to-be free agent at the time of the not-so sweet situation.

“It wasn’t like [Pat Riley] was on the plane and I was about to get my cookies and Riles snatched them out my hand. You know how stories can build to Sasquatch at some point.”

James, 40, explained how “everyone knows” his biggest vice is chocolate chip cookies and he’d grown accustomed to receiving the treats from the women who baked them on flights — until that fateful day.

“Then one flight I got on and I looked at them and they looked at me, and I’m like, ‘That look didn’t look familiar,’ and I was like, and it was like, ‘No, we’re not allowed to. No more cookies on these flights,’” James recalled.

“And we all know where it came from. I looked at D-Wade, D-Wade looked at me. Without even saying he was like, f–king Riles had done it again.”

Wade, who went to four consecutive NBA Finals with James during their run in South Beach together —resulting in two championships in 2012 and 2013 — stirred buzz in February over his account of the cookie tale.

“You’re talking about a team who is four Finals in a row. You don’t need to micromanage us. I felt that ‘Riles’ went a little too far with his micromanaging at points like that. He’s a grown man; you don’t take the cookies away from him,” Wade said on the “Underground Lounge” podcast.

James originally took his talents to Miami in 2010 after seven seasons in Cleveland.

The four-time NBA champion returned to the Cavaliers following the 2013-14 season with the Heat.

James added he had to leave the Heat and go to Cleveland when it was time for “Wade to get paid” by Miami brass.

“It was at one point where I left and it was time for D-Wade to get paid and they didn’t want to pay D-Wade and D-Wade left. When Wade County had to leave and go to Chicago, I looked at the cookie situation and I was like ‘Oh s–t maybe it wasn’t that bad,’” James said.

James won a championship with the Cavaliers in June 2016, two years before he joined the Lakers.

He won an NBA title with Los Angeles in the Disney Bubble during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.