Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling was caught on tape lecturing his girlfriend for associating with African-Americans, including posing for a picture with former Lakers legend Magic Johnson.
The video was revealed Saturday morning by TMZ , a clip stretching nearly 10 minutes that shows the team’s owner deriding his girlfriend for being seen with African-American men at games. Donald Sterling also admonished girlfriend V. Stiviano for meeting Magic Johnson and posting a picture of their encounter to her Instagram account .
“It bothers me a lot that you want to broadcast that you’re associating with black people. Do you have to?” he told her.
In another clip, Donald Sterling admitted that he didn’t care if his much-younger girlfriend slept around with African-American men, as long as she kept the encounters away from the public.
“You can sleep with [black people]. You can bring them in, you can do whatever you want,” Sterling told her in the five-minute mark of the clip. “The little I ask you is not to promote it on that… and not to bring them to my games.”
The revelation comes at a terrible time for Donald Sterling and the Los Angeles Clippers. The team is locked in a first-round matchup with the Golden State Warriors, currently holding a two games to one lead in the best of seven series.
Many believe the video will lead to ramifications for Sterling.
“Whether Sterling is sadly mixing up his words or only referring to Magic Johnson personally, or jealous of the brief attention his much younger girlfriend (Sterling is still married to another woman, mind you) received isn’t the point – the point is that the NBA has to do something about its biggest problem,” noted Yahoo Sports writer Kelly Dwyer .
Even before the arguably racist video emerged, Donald Sterling was one of the NBA’s most controversial owners. Many have accused him pinched pennies with his team salary, putting out teams with little chance of winning while knowing he will earn solid revenue regardless if they win or not.