November 21, 2014
Dave Chappelle Doesn’t Think Donald Sterling Should’ve Lost the Clippers
Reporting by Jenisha Watts:
In April 2014, the gossip site TMZ released an audio clip of Los Angeles Clippers Donald Sterling‘s private conversation with his then-girlfriend, V. Stiviano, in which he requested that she not bring any African-Americans to his games, and said how he wasn’t particularly fond of basketball legend Magic Johnson.
Superstars LeBron James, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and others publicly shared their outrage. An annoyed James told a reporter, “There is no room for Donald Sterling in our league.â€
Eventually, Sterling’s ownership was terminated, after his wife, Shelly, sold the team to ex-Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on July, 28. Now, funnyman Dave Chappelle is sharing his surprising thoughts on Sterling’s loss of his team. In an interview with GQ magazine, where the comedian is the cover star for the Men of the Year issue, he shared his thoughts:
“Ultimately, I don’t think he should have lost his team. I don’t like the idea that someone could record a secret conversation and that a person could lose their assets from that, even though I think what he said was awful. When you think about the intimacy of a situation, like, can a man just chill with his mistress in peace? I just don’t like when things like that happen, because if they take shit away for things that people say that are objectionable, I may not have anything in a few years. Granted, I don’t think I say shit like ‘Stop bringing white people to my game.'”