A shocking announcement, a relationship pushed to the limits, and NOT punching Howard Stern. He may
have brought Showtime to the court, but life hasn't always been magical for Magic Johnson.
Magic Johnson experienced a tragic loss at a young age when his best friend,
Reggie Chastine, was killed in a car crash. His high school friend and teammate Chastine
was the one who first encouraged him to dream bigger about basketball.
The summer before Johnson's senior year, Chastine was hit and killed by an alleged drunk driver
who ran a stop light. Johnson wrote about how his death devastated the community, adding -
"This was my first experience with death, and it was devastating."
As he told the Los Angeles Times, Johnson was inspired by the small-statured Chastine
and their high school games throughout his life, writing:
"It takes not only being good, you have to have that drive […] Reggie taught me that.
He was the first one who really believed in me. I doubted myself, but he was looking to big things."
After a strong rookie season in the NBA, Magic Johnson had to miss 45 games in his second year
with the Lakers because of torn cartilage in his left knee. He wrote that he was completely
unprepared for the upheaval because he hadn't missed a game yet from injuries. He wrote about
the experience in "My Life," recalling - "It was awful. I hate losing,
and I was losing big time with this."
The star wound up missing play for a total of 100 days. When he came back for a game
against the New Jersey Nets, Johnson was greeted by a standing ovation from his
fans and teammates. He told the press that his time away had given him a fresh perspective,
and insisted that losing the camaraderie with his teammates was the worst part, writing -
"That's my life, being around the fellas, talking jive, singing on the bus, that's the whole thing."
In one of the most pivotal moments in sports history,
Magic Johnson told the world that he was HIV positive in 1991. According to ESPN,
the basketball star was diagnosed after a regular check-up and was
urgently flown back to Los Angeles afterward. When he received his results, Johnson demanded that the
team physicians test him two more times before he fully believed them. As he later admitted to NPR,
Johnson found that telling his wife Cookie was the most difficult part of the whole experience.
After the basketball star reassured her that he would understand if she left him,
Cookie reportedly hit him and declared -
"You know what, we're gonna beat this together."
Johnson announced in a press conference that he was quitting the team to focus
on his health. He clarified that he didn't actually have AIDS and that he was going to
live with the help of medication, while promising to help defeat stigma as a
national spokesman about HIV. Despite the devastating news, he spoke encouragingly.
"I'm going to go on. I'm gonna beat it, and I'm going to have fun. OK so,
thank you again, and I'll see you soon."
Despite his bravery in telling the world, Magic Johnson became the subject of a lot of jokes after
his HIV diagnosis. Shock jock Howard Stern had been particularly persistent on his radio show,
so when Johnson was given his own talk show, "The Magic Hour," the controversial radio star became
a guest. Six years earlier, Johnson had written about how he'd contracted the virus in "My Life,"
stating that he'd been sexually promiscuous with female Lakers fans during the '80s.
Naturally, this sat at the heart of Stern's mockery.
"At least you had fun getting AIDS, you know what I'm saying?"
Reflecting on the episode with Variety years later,
Johnson revealed that he was furious when he found out the controversial guest had been
booked for his show. He could barely contain his frustration during filming, stating:
"So many times, I wanted to say something and hit [Stern]."
He swore that he'd never just smile and tolerate similar situations in
the future – no matter how many TV executives talked him into it.
Although Magic Johnson returned to the Lakers in 1992 after playing in the Barcelona Olympics,
other players like the Utah Jazz's Karl Malone were still openly hesitant about
playing against him despite the lack of evidence that anyone could contract HIV
from him on the court. Johnson announced his retirement a couple of months later,
but later expressed regret over the decision, telling the Los Angeles Times:
"If I knew what I know now, I wouldn't have retired. But
I didn't know that then. And you've just got to go with what happened."
As Johnson reminded Variety, research around HIV was limited at the time and there was a lot of
misinformation being spread about the virus. He put a lot of effort into publicizing the fight
against it. His fight against misinformation also factored into his decision to quit George
Bush's administration's AIDS commission after just eight months. In his resignation letter he wrote -
"I am disappointed that you have dropped the ball and that your
administration is not doing everything that it must to fight this disease."
Magic Johnson and his wife, Cookie Johnson,
first became acquainted as freshmen at Michigan State. While she quickly tamed his wild ways,
it wasn't always smooth sailing. In the late '80s he briefly called off their engagement
because of his career. And in 2001, the pair had a secret separation that they hid from the media.
On an episode of "SuperSoul Sunday," Cookie blamed the split on Johnson's
ego. She was focusing on being a mother at the time and her husband
was gathering momentum in the business world, staying out later and later.
"He was getting bigger and bigger and bigger, you know and his ego was getting
bigger and bigger and, you know so it just all became about work for him."
The couple reached a breaking point the night
after he received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2001,
over Johnson dancing with some girls rather than his wife, with Cookie admitting -
"That kind of got to me because it had been boiling, boiling,
boiling, boiling anyway. That was our first kind of spat in public."
As the couple told Ebony, during their separation, Johnson decided to change his
ways while Cookie focused on personal growth. It saved their marriage, with Magic sharing -
"Now we're so connected to each other, but it took that situation to bring us back."
In December 2018, Magic Johnson's daughter, Elisa Johnson, and nine of her friends had a
terrifying encounter when two armed men broke into a Californian Airbnb house they were staying in.
As reported by TMZ, some of her friends were held at gunpoint by the robbers, who reportedly took
between $30,000 and $40,000 in jewelry, cash, and electronics. Meanwhile, Elisa was escaping
through a sliding glass door at the back of the property and running to find help from a neighbor.
Thankfully, nobody was seriously injured, but Elisa later revealed that she'd sustained
an injury to her abdomen that had left her scarred. A year after the terrifying ordeal,
the eyewear designer bared her marked midriff in a selfie on Instagram and
admitted she'd been struggling with how it now looked, writing in the caption -
"Until now I've been so afraid to show these scars, and incredibly insecure about the way
I look. But I now realize these scars are a part of my journey and tell the story of who I am."
In February 2019, TMZ reported that a suspect had been arrested for the robbery. However,
a second suspect remained at large.
Magic Johnson was at the center of a high-profile scandal in 2014 when TMZ released leaked
recordings of Clippers owner Donald Sterling telling his mistress V. Stiviano not to associate
with Black basketball players in public. In his comments the former NBA higher-up criticized her
specifically for posting a picture of herself with Magic Johnson on Instagram, saying -
"It bothers me a lot that you want to broadcast that you're associating with Black people."
Understandably, Johnson expressed his dismay
at the racist rant — particularly because he had known Sterling since 1979, telling CBS -
"I thought we had a sort of friendship [...] I thought he respected me."
Johnson added that the comments were painful because of their hypocrisy,
expressing his sympathy for the Black basketball players
on the Clippers and the Black tenants of Sterling's buildings, going on to say -
"We're putting a lot of money in his pocket,
but at the same time he doesn't want us in the arena. So I think that all of us are outraged."
Johnson also called for him to step down as owner. The NBA clearly agreed with him,
since they fined Sterling $2.5 million and gave him a lifetime ban. A month later on CNN,
Sterling apologized for his comments and denied that he was racist. Instead,
he accused some people, including Johnson, of having conspired against him.
"He acts so holy. I mean he made love to every girl in every city in America, and he had AIDS."
In 1979, Magic Johnson and team owner, Jerry Buss, both joined the Lakers. It proved to
be a fruitful union at a pivotal time, as the team won several championships. Understandably,
the two formed a close bond, with Johnson telling the Los Angeles Times -
"We would go to his house on Saturday morning, have breakfast and play pool,
and then get on his bus to go stand on the sidelines of USC football games.
Then at night we would go to clubs and, man, he could really dance."
The NBA star credited Buss with revolutionizing basketball as a sport,
as well as his own career. After his career with the Lakers ended,
the entrepreneur also taught Johnson how to make a living in the world of
business. That lifelong bond made Buss' 2013 death particularly difficult for Johnson, who stated -
"He had such a big heart. I have lost my second father. I have lost one of my best friends."
He revealed that they had spent five hours together at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center before
Buss died, reliving memories and holding hands. Recalling the final moments, Johnson added -
"Without Dr. Jerry Buss, there is no Magic."