Donald Sterling On Magic Johnson: ‘He Should Be Ashamed of Himself’

Image by CNN

By Anne Cohen May 13, 2014

Donald Sterling just doesn’t know when to quit.

As if the Los Angeles Clippers owner’s racist remarks weren’t bad enough, he had to go and comment on Magic Johnson having AIDS (For the record, he doesn’t. He has HIV).

“He acts so holy. I mean, he made love to every girl in every city in America. And he had AIDS,” said in an interview with CNN that aired Monday.

Lovely.

“I think he should be ashamed of himself,” he added. “For him to go and do what he did and get AIDS. I mean, come on.”

Sterling’s beef with Johnson came front and center when the 80-year-old was recorded spewing hate about African Americans at his mistress, V. Stiviano, after she posted an Instagram photo of herself with the NBA Hall of Famer.

The banned NBA owner insisted throughout the interview — with a delightfully deadpan Anderson Cooper — that despite what people think, he is not in fact racist. ” I’m not a racist, I’ve never been a racist and I’ll never be a racist,” he said, while calling Anderson Cooper a racist (“I think you’re more of a racist than I am.”)

“I can’t explain some of the stupid, foolish uneducated words that I uttered,” Sterling went on (and on, and on).

I have some free advice for you Donald: Stop talking.

Anne Cohen was the Forward’s deputy digital media editor. When she’s not looking for the secret Jewish history of Voodoo in New Orleans, or making lists about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, she writes for The Assimilator. She graduated from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism with an M.S. magazine concentration in 2012.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO