Donald Sterling has remained pretty quiet since being banned from the NBA as a result of his hideously racist comments, however a friend of his was able to get him to talk.
This same ‘friend’ also recorded the audio and released it to Radar Online.
“You think I’m a racist?” Sterling angrily asks a long-time friend in the recorded phone conversation. “You think I have anything in the world but love for everybody? You don’t think that! You know I’m not a racist!”
Radar’s source provided an affidavit confirming that the phone call was indeed made by Sterling, 81, who was recently exposed for telling rumored mistress V. Stiviano, “It bothers me a lot that you want to broadcast that you’re associating with black people.”
Yet despite those recent remarks, the disgraced NBA owner insists on the secret recording that his humble roots gave him an appreciation and tolerance for diversity.
“I grew up in East L.A …” Sterling explains. “I was the president of the high school there. I mean, and I’m a Jew! And 50% of the people there were black and 40% were hispanic. … So I mean, people must have a good feeling for me.”
But when asked whether he had spoken to mixed race Clippers player Blake Griffin since his racial slurs were released, Sterling insists, “I didn’t talk to anybody! I’m in my house in Beverly Hills.”
“I mean, how could you think I’m a racist knowing me all these years?” he asks his friend. “How can you be in this business and be a racist? Do you think I tell the coach to get white players? Or to get the best player he can get?”
Referencing the Instagram photo of Stiviano with Magic Johnson that sparked the whole brouhaha, a defeated Sterling said, “It breaks my heart that Magic Johnson, a guy that I respect so much, wouldn’t stand up and say, ‘Well let’s get the facts. Let’s get him and talk to him.’ Nobody tried. Nobody!”
Anderson Cooper, CNN, and Barbara Walters have each tried to sit down with Sterling to get the facts, but he’s canceled every single interview.
