Image by getty images

Los Angeles Clippers Owner Donald Sterling, who was banned for life from the NBA over racist comments, has apologized and asked for forgiveness in his first public statement since the controversy began last month, CNN said on Sunday.

In an interview to be broadcast on Monday, Sterling told CNN he made a terrible mistake but was not a racist.

“I love my league, I love my partners. Am I entitled to one mistake? It’s a terrible mistake, and I’ll never do it again,” Sterling said in the interview, according to CNN. “I’m here to apologize.”

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

His comments came about two weeks after National Basketball Association Commissioner Adam Silver fined the billionaire businessman $2.5 million and banned him after a tape surfaced of Sterling telling a female friend not to associate with black people.

“The reason it’s hard for me, very hard for me, is that I’m wrong. I caused the problem. I don’t know how to correct it,” Sterling told CNN when asked why he’d taken so long to speak out.

Sterling’s wife, Shelly Sterling, who has co-owned the team with her husband since 1981, said in an interview with ABC News on Sunday that she would fight any attempt by the league to force her to sell.

“I was shocked by what he (Donald Sterling) said. And, well, I guess whatever their decision is, we have to live with it,” Shelly Sterling told ABC News. “But I don’t know why I should be punished for what his actions were.”

The Los Angeles Times reported on Wednesday that Shelly Sterling had hired a law firm to help her as the NBA moves to terminate her husband’s ownership of the team.

Shelly Sterling, who shares ownership of the Clippers through a family trust, told ABC she intends to divorce her estranged husband.

“For the last 20 years, I’ve been seeing attorneys for a divorce,” she told ABC News. “Eventually, I’m going to.”

On Friday, the NBA installed Richard Parsons, a former Time Warner chief executive and chairman, as interim chief executive of the Clippers. Parsons was appointed three days after Sterling’s longtime top lieutenant, Andy Roeser, was placed on indefinite leave as team president.

In an audio tape released by entertainment news blog Radar Online on Friday, Donald Sterling can be heard dismissing the racist remarks that set off the controversy as jealousy over other men spending time with a woman he was trying to woo.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$90 $180

$360

Other amount