C.J.’s parents are Kimberly Stroud and Coleridge Bernard Stroud III. They got married in 1997 and welcomed children Isaiah, Asmar, Ciara, and C.J. before 2012, when Kimberly filed for divorce, according to People. Coleridge, a former pastor, was sentenced to prison a few years later when C.J. was just 13 years old.

According to CNN, Coleridge pled guilty in 2015 to charges of carjacking, kidnapping, robbery, evading an officer with reckless driving, and misdemeanor sexual battery. He received a 38-year sentence because he was a repeat offender.

At a 2018 appeal, Coleridge said that his life “spun out of control” after he and Kimberly broke up in 2012 and that he “began using illegal drugs again after more than 20 years of sobriety,” as Sports Illustrated reported in a 2022 profile of C.J.

Meanwhile, the young athlete had a choice to make, as Kimberly told Sports Illustrated: “He was going to let that motivate him and be the best, or he was going to succumb to it and become a statistic of a kid whose parent did something they shouldn’t.”