THE STERLING AFFAIRS Part 5: Not Fit (2019)
THE STERLING AFFAIRS Part 5: Not Fit (2019)Update: 2024-05-30
2
2Share
Description
The Donald Sterling story comes to an end where it all started — with a showdown in court. This time, though, it’s Donald vs. Shelly.
This series was originally aired in 2019. We’re re-releasing it in anticipation of the FX and Hulu series, Clipped, a six-part sports drama based on The Sterling Affairs.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Comments
Top Podcasts
The Best New Comedy Podcast Right Now – June 2024The Best News Podcast Right Now – June 2024The Best New Business Podcast Right Now – June 2024The Best New Sports Podcast Right Now – June 2024The Best New True Crime Podcast Right Now – June 2024The Best New Joe Rogan Experience Podcast Right Now – June 20The Best New Dan Bongino Show Podcast Right Now – June 20The Best New Mark Levin Podcast – June 2024
In Channel
Download from Google Play
Download from App Store
United States00:00
00:00
1.0x
0.5x
0.8x
1.0x
1.25x
1.5x
2.0x
3.0x
Sleep Timer
Off
End of Episode
5 Minutes
10 Minutes
15 Minutes
30 Minutes
45 Minutes
60 Minutes
120 Minutes
Transcript
00:00:00
Throughout this series, you've heard me refer to V. Staviano as Donald Sterling's mistress.
00:00:04
I talk about how she violated the unspoken mistress code of "Stay silent and stay out of the
00:00:09
eye shot of the wife". But was she actually his mistress? I thought about that a lot in the
00:00:15
years since reporting this. What is in that title? What is the name mistress mean? Because part of the
00:00:21
reason V. Staviano saw herself differently was because she really thought she was going to run
00:00:26
the clippers one day. She thought of herself as his assistant. She thought of him as her mentor,
00:00:32
and she insisted they never actually had sex. But here's the thing. Regardless of who V really was
00:00:40
to Donald Sterling, she mattered to Shelley long after the scandal and long after her 15 minutes of
00:00:46
fame. Keep that in mind as you listen to this episode of the Sterling Affairs and hear how Shelley
00:00:52
continued to attack V, even after she sold the clippers. Fan support for the clippers
00:00:59
remains strong as the team battles the thunder in the playoffs. But scandal continues to swirl
00:01:05
around team owner Donald Sterling. The NBA hopes to force Donald Sterling to sell the clippers,
00:01:11
but his estranged wife Shelley owns a 50% stake in the team. She promises to fight to maintain
00:01:17
ownership. Fans say the team needs a fresh start. That first night back in the Staples Center for Game
00:01:25
5, hours after Adam Silver abandoned Donald Sterling, I noticed a couple sitting in the press room.
00:01:32
They were an older couple wearing matching red shirts that said "Team Shelley" on the front.
00:01:37
It caught my attention. In all my years of covering the clippers, I'd never really thought of
00:01:44
Shelley as anything more than Donald's wife. The woman who stuck it out with an obnoxious
00:01:49
cheating husband for 60 years. But also, Shelley wasn't exactly a popular figure at the time.
00:01:55
Anything associated with the Sterling name was downright toxic.
00:01:59
So who were these people brave enough to wear team Shelley shirts to a hostile arena
00:02:04
in the middle of all this? The couple wearing those shirts were Shelley's dear friend
00:02:11
Katherine Bauman and her husband. My first conversation with Katherine wasn't remarkable in any way.
00:02:17
But it did for the first time, wake me up to the fact that Shelley Sterling was not simply the
00:02:22
quiet stand-by-your-man housewife that I had imagined she was all those years. She was in the middle
00:02:28
of a battle herself, and she was not about to go down without a fight. This is episode 5, not fit.
00:02:36
[Music]
00:02:47
Doc, the commissioner made it clear that he would like ownership to change with his team. As uncomfortable
00:02:54
as it might be to answer this question, do you think it would be best if Donald Sterling was no
00:02:59
longer owner of this team for everyone? Well, I don't think it will be. I think that's been clear.
00:03:04
I think Adams made that clear, so I think that's already been decided. And yes, I do think that's
00:03:09
the right decision. The next step is where do we go? The Clippers own coach, Doc Rivers,
00:03:15
didn't even know what it meant that Donald was banned, but technically still on the team.
00:03:20
Tonight at Staples Center, every penny will still go to him, and in the foreseeable future,
00:03:24
every penny will still go to him. So you look at this for the players, and they say Donald
00:03:28
Sterling can't come around to anything. You know what they're really changes for their day-to-day?
00:03:32
Nothing because Donald Sterling is still going to be the one that's out here getting paid.
00:03:36
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver wanted to take the team away from Sterling. The faster he
00:03:41
moved, the better the chances of that actually happening. The fans in the public were squarely on his
00:03:47
side. He needed the pressure of their outrage to back him up. Because when it came down to it,
00:03:53
whether or not Sterling had to keep his team was one of the other owners.
00:03:56
Your members of a very select fraternity and Donald Sterling is a member of your fraternity.
00:04:02
And you are either silently endorsing him or you are publicly rebuking him.
00:04:07
And that's what will actually make this change. The other 29 owners,
00:04:12
28 of whom are other rich white guys need to do something now they should already have.
00:04:19
A lot of these same owners are the ones that kept him in year after year after year when we knew
00:04:24
all the racial stuff was going on out here.
00:04:27
The problem is, those other owners were guys who also have said plenty of things in private,
00:04:32
they wouldn't want to be held accountable for in public. Dallas Maverick's owner, Mark Cuban,
00:04:38
was the first to voice his unease.
00:04:39
What Donald's done within the confines of the NBA, Adam will deal with that within the
00:04:44
Constitution of the NBA and I'm all for him taking those steps. But in terms of should we kick him
00:04:49
out and go outside of the Constitution should we start taking steps to condemn people for what they
00:04:54
say in the privacy of their own home and it just happens to be recorded. That's a slippery slope I
00:04:58
don't want to get on. If there were other owners concerned about that slippery slope,
00:05:03
Donald Sterling might still have a chance. All he needed was seven owners to vote to keep him in.
00:05:09
And then Donald went on TV. I sat down with the embattled LA Clippers owner and his Beverly Hills
00:05:16
home for a no-holes bar interview. There were no ground rules, nothing was off limits and there was
00:05:20
no PR entourage telling him what to say and when to stop. These are Sterling's words in his alone.
00:05:26
Donald Sterling hadn't given a sit-down interview in nearly 15 years.
00:05:30
The last time he'd done one in April of 2000 for sports illustrated,
00:05:35
he landed on the cover as the man responsible for the worst franchise in the history of sports.
00:05:40
And now here he was, giving an interview to Anderson Cooper on CNN.
00:05:47
Two weeks had passed since TMZ published that tape and Donald hadn't said a word. Not even after Adam
00:05:53
Silver banned him for life. Millions of people tuned in to see what he would say. Myself included.
00:06:00
I'm not a racist. I made a terrible, terrible mistake and I'm here with you today to apologize
00:06:09
and to ask for forgiveness for all the people that I've heard and I've heard so many people.
00:06:16
So many innocent people and I've heard myself. It was as bizarre of an interview as anything I have
00:06:25
ever seen. At times talking about his mistress, Vista Viano, he was weepy and distraught.
00:06:32
Perhaps he's made some mistakes. I thought she cared for me.
00:06:36
I was stupid. How could a girl care for a man? 51 years old.
00:06:44
She didn't. She wouldn't have released those tapes.
00:06:49
But she's not a bad person, you know. At other times, he was defiant.
00:06:56
For a lot of people, though, these comments that were caught on tape do echo other charges
00:07:02
that have been made and passed. As you know, by Elgin Baylor and other lawsuits. No, no, no, no, no, no.
00:07:07
You're trying to connect them. No, I'm not. Elgin Baylor has nothing to do with what the things I
00:07:13
said 20 years later. What did they have to do? Well, Elgin Baylor made a claim that you had a
00:07:18
plantation mentality and then now in this thing, you're saying you feed these guys. I think you have
00:07:24
more of a plantation mentality than I do. You know what? And I think you're more of a racist than I
00:07:30
am because I'm not a racist and I'd never been a racist. I'll never be a racist. I don't know what
00:07:36
that means. I have a mentality. You're asking me about questions. What do you mean a mentality?
00:07:42
He had started by saying he was there to apologize and then kept categorically denying he'd done
00:07:47
anything wrong in a moment where he could have tried to redeem himself. Donald Sterling instead
00:07:54
doubled down on his strange vendetta against magic Johnson. What has he done? Can you tell me
00:07:59
big magic Johnson? What has he done? Well, he's a business person. He's got age. Did he do any
00:08:07
business? I like, did he help anybody in South LA? I think his HIV doesn't actually focus on AIDS.
00:08:13
Well, what kind of a guy goes to every city has sex with every girl? Then he catches HIV and
00:08:19
is that someone we want to respect and tell our kids about? I think he should be ashamed of himself.
00:08:27
I think he should go into the background. But what does he do for the black people?
00:08:33
Of all the guys in basketball, past and present, magic Johnson was pretty universally adored.
00:08:39
Well, I was just, I was blown away. I was, I couldn't believe that he had said those things.
00:08:46
But what people watching in that interview at home didn't know was that Donald had helped Jerry
00:08:52
Buzz launch Showtime. How he'd watched Jerry and Magic form a bond, helping beloved and being
00:08:58
lauded for the way he gave back to his community. The way Magic Johnson was, that that was all Donald
00:09:04
Tokowicz had ever wanted. All those times Donald Sterling had bought himself awards or outright
00:09:10
lied about donations he never made. Magic Johnson's success was real. The respect he earned was real.
00:09:18
The money he gave back to his community was real. You know, first of all, 22 years ago, I announced
00:09:24
that I did have HIV and I came out like a man, you know, I told the world. And I hope that I was able to
00:09:32
help people in doing that and I think I did. And then we've given away over $15 million, my foundation.
00:09:39
I've done a lot of work in the HIV and AIDS community. I mean, he made love to every girl in every city
00:09:46
in America and he had AIDS. And when he had those AIDS, I went to my synagogue and I prayed for him.
00:09:54
I hope he could live and be well. If he'd meant to exonerate himself in that interview,
00:10:00
Donald Sterling had failed in every way imaginable. Any remaining question about what kind of man he was
00:10:07
had been answered. There was no saving Donald from the court of public opinion anymore.
00:10:12
The owners were not going to vote to save him after this. His fate was sealed.
00:10:19
If Shelley was going to survive and hold onto this team, she was going to have to save herself.
00:10:23
It became clear that the NBA and the commissioner in particular were moving so fast that she was
00:10:31
going to be roadkill. They were so far ahead and it's like, we're done. This is over. She's going to be
00:10:38
toast just like he is. Shelley's public relations consultant Glenn Bunting realized they needed to
00:10:44
act quickly. And so I came up with the idea of our elders. What is your relationship today with your
00:10:51
husband? We're estranged. We've been estranged for about a year. Like her husband, Shelley's sterling
00:10:58
never gave interviews. She's been married to this man for 58 years, married to 21. And she now has
00:11:06
to stand up for herself because she's going to take on the league. She's going to take on this
00:11:11
PR nightmare and she's never done an interview because she's always been behind the scenes.
00:11:16
It was time for Shelley to step out of the shadows and insert herself into the narrative.
00:11:21
Her main objective seemed to be to distance herself from the dumpster fire that was her husband,
00:11:26
Donald Sterling, and assert her independence. She even waived a petition for divorce in front of
00:11:32
the camera. Will you divorce your husband? For the last 20 years, I've been seeing attorneys for
00:11:42
divorce and on and off and on and off. And in fact, I signed the petition for divorce. And it came to
00:11:54
almost being filed. And then my financial advisor and my attorney said to me not now. What was the last
00:12:04
straw that made you say after all these years I'm out of here? This last few weeks was the worst.
00:12:14
And I just couldn't take anymore. It was a masterstroke. Shelley came across as the loyal wife,
00:12:23
betrayed by a cheating husband and his much younger mistress. In just one interview,
00:12:28
she'd gone from toxic co-conspirator to sympathetic victim. And she was subjecting herself to this
00:12:34
very public humiliation, she said, because she was fighting for her rights and her team.
00:12:39
Mrs. Sterling, you own 50% of the LA Clippers, while there are reports that the NBA wants to oust you
00:12:47
completely as a team owner. You will fight that decision? I will fight that decision. I think half the
00:12:54
team is mine and I'll fight for it. It was a nice sentiment, but your lawyer, Pierce O'Donnell,
00:13:01
already knew his client didn't have much legal ground to stand on. I'd had a couple hours to read
00:13:06
the NBA Constitution and bylaws. And I go, "Whoa, looks like the NBA could do whatever the hell they
00:13:12
want here." The NBA didn't want to negotiate with Donald Sterling's wife, but it also couldn't
00:13:18
afford not to. Adam Silver was in a precarious position. He would need three quarters of the NBA
00:13:24
owners to approve taking the team from Sterling. And even if he got those votes, there would likely
00:13:30
be a long, ugly legal battle with Donald. It would be cleaner, much cleaner if there was a way
00:13:37
for the league to work with her to sell the team before the owner's vote ever took place. So Adam
00:13:43
Silver listened to what Pierce had to say. After some pleasantries I take over and I say, "Look, Adam,
00:13:50
we really want to try to resolve this and not have a public bloodletting. It's not going to be good
00:13:57
for the NBA and it won't be good for Shelley. I have a proposal." That proposal? Let Shelley
00:14:04
negotiate the sale of the team. And then let Shelley handle Donald. To say he jumped at the idea
00:14:11
would be an understatement. I was on perilously thin legal grounds and I'd say that now candidly,
00:14:17
but the NBA did, they probably knew it, but whenever I'm a blustering Irishman trial lawyer,
00:14:24
so what the hell. But I was thrilled at the outcome of that meeting.
00:14:30
On May 19th, Adam Silver filed charges to terminate Donald Sterling's ownership of the Clippers
00:14:36
and officially set a vote for June 3rd. In the meantime, Pierce's blustering worked. Between
00:14:42
now and that vote, he and Shelley had 12 days to find a buyer. "What the fuck? I got to sell a
00:14:49
basketball team and I never sold a basketball ticket, much less a basketball team."
00:14:53
Luckily for them, there was already a lot of interest. Bits came in immediately.
00:14:59
Oprah Winfrey faxed in her bid from the set of the movie Selma.
00:15:02
former Clippers player, Grant Hill, put in a bid. But then Shelley Sterling got a call that changed
00:15:08
everything. It was really funny because I got a phone call seven in the morning.
00:15:15
On a Friday morning, early, like seven-ish, her phone rings, her cell phone. And she kind of
00:15:23
groggily grabs the phone and says, "Hello." And some man's on the phone and he's telling me his name.
00:15:30
I can't even understand what he's saying. I'm Steve Bommer. I'd like to fly down from Seattle to
00:15:36
meet with you. He says, "I want to buy the team." And he says, "Okay." So he says, "When can I meet you?"
00:15:42
I says, "Well, I have a few interviews today. How about tomorrow at three o'clock?" He says, "I'll be there."
00:15:51
And he hung up and I went back to sleep. She wakes up later and calls a friend of hers.
00:15:57
She's like, "You know who Steve Bommer is?" And she says, "Dummy, Steve Bommer." I said, "Oh, okay, now I know who it was."
00:16:06
"I love this company." Yes!
00:16:14
Steve Bommer had just retired as the CEO of Microsoft.
00:16:20
He was worth an estimated $20 billion and had recently lost a bid to buy an NBA team.
00:16:25
So he was highly motivated to close the steel.
00:16:28
The Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, Steve flies in.
00:16:33
On his private plane, walks in promptly at three o'clock and he says, "Okay, I want to buy the team."
00:16:41
How much do you want? And I had originally told my attorney what I wanted, 1.6 to 2.0.
00:16:49
Billion?
00:16:50
Yeah, Billion. Not dollars.
00:16:53
So I said, "Well, this is what I'd like." And so he says, "Well, what have you been offered so far?"
00:17:02
I said, "Well, pretty close to it." He says, "I'll give you 1.9."
00:17:07
I said, "I really want 2.0." Then he came back and he said, "Okay, it's a deal."
00:17:16
Right up the papers!
00:17:20
2 Billion was a staggering number.
00:17:22
Bommer beat out Oprah and the rest of the bidders by hundreds of millions of dollars.
00:17:27
The last NBA franchise to be sold, the Milwaukee Bucks in April of 2014,
00:17:32
had sold for $550 million. Just weeks before this whole scandal blew up.
00:17:38
Shelley Sterling got Steve Bommer to give her more than three and a half times that.
00:17:45
All for a franchise that was in crisis. Shelley even got all her special requests.
00:17:50
Her two courtside seats for the rest of her life, additional seats for her friends,
00:17:56
parking food for her and her guests, access to the VIP club.
00:18:00
Three rings as the Clippers ever win a championship during her lifetime,
00:18:03
and the title, owner of Emeritus.
00:18:05
Shelley's thrilled, okay? But I have a problem. Donald has to sign off.
00:18:13
It was a condition from Steve Bommer in the NBA. Either, Donald has to sign off from the sale,
00:18:18
or a court has to approve Shelley's authority to sell the team.
00:18:22
Pearson Shelley would have to go to Donald and his lawyers,
00:18:25
with less than a week to close the sale before the Board of Governors vote on June 3rd.
00:18:30
Hope for the best plan for the worst. So I'd already had six lawyers in the firm working out plan B.
00:18:37
A backup plan in case Donald pulled the Donald and tried to scuttle the deal.
00:18:42
Pearson and his team had planned for this though.
00:18:45
There was a provision in Donald and Shelley's family trust that could completely turn the tables.
00:18:51
If two doctors specializing in mental health certify that he lacks the capacity, mental capacity,
00:19:00
to function as a trustee of a multi-billion dollar empire, that trustee is removed.
00:19:09
But Pearson couldn't put the plan together unless Shelley sterling agreed, and it was a hell of an ask.
00:19:15
I'm telling you, she was crying at night. It was very, very difficult for her.
00:19:19
But ultimately, Shelley agreed and told Pearson to start preparing plan B.
00:19:25
And hope they wouldn't have to resort to it.
00:19:34
On the grounds that she was concerned for her husband's mental state after his disturbing interview
00:19:40
with Anderson Cooper, Shelley made an appointment for Donald with a neurologist named Dr.
00:19:44
Merrill Platzer. Platzer was examining Donald when Bobby Semini showed up for what he thought
00:19:51
was a job interview to be Donald's lawyer. I walked into the house in Beverly Hills.
00:19:57
When I got there, I went in and I was told, oh, he's in the next room meeting with somebody and
00:20:03
he knows your hero be there in a minute. After about five or ten minutes, I went in, sat down,
00:20:08
introduced myself, she introduced herself, and then ultimately we determined that, oh,
00:20:13
she's here doing this evaluation. She was there to evaluate Donald for dementia.
00:20:17
Donald knew it, Shelley knew it, the man interviewing to become Donald's lawyer knew it.
00:20:22
This was done in broad daylight. And so after the interview, she says, Mr. Sterling,
00:20:29
I want to tell you my diagnosis based on my testing and my observation of you,
00:20:34
you have a form of dementia known as early Alzheimer's. Donald said, thank you. I'm hungry. Let's go
00:20:43
to lunch. That was Donald's reaction. They got the second diagnosis that Donald had dementia
00:20:50
from a renowned geriatric psychiatrist at UCLA, Dr. James Spar, three days after Platzer's initial
00:20:57
diagnosis. They had the two diagnoses in their back pockets as they negotiated with Steve Balmer.
00:21:03
Like Pierce said, plan B. When they got the sale agreement with Steve Balmer figured out,
00:21:09
they gave Donald the chance to do this the easy way to sign off on the sale that Shelley had
00:21:14
negotiated. We get them on the phone and Donald launches into a tirade. I can get more money for
00:21:21
the team, what the fuck. There were a lot of fuck use. And I'm not selling this team. It was time to
00:21:28
implement plan B. Pierce O'Donnell had a letter ready to send to Donald's lead attorney, Max Bleacher,
00:21:34
the same lawyer who had saved Donald from getting kicked out of the NBA back in 1984.
00:21:40
Dear Max, please find and close the reports of Dr. Platzer and Dr. Spar, both of whom have concluded
00:21:48
that Donald lacks the capacity, pursuant to section 3.9, whatever it is of the sterling family
00:21:55
trust amended less. December, Donald is hereby removed. No one on Donald's team saw this coming.
00:22:04
In his prime, Max Bleacher had been a legal lion, but he was in his 80s now. Bobby Samini had barely
00:22:12
been hired and was still getting caught up on the case. The funnier part was that I don't
00:22:17
really know anything about sports. And it was already too late to do much about it. They tried in vain
00:22:24
to find a big prestige law firm to partner with. But no one wanted to touch Donald's sterling,
00:22:28
no one wanted to stake their reputation as the firm that defended that old racist. Donald looked to
00:22:34
me and said the cavalry is not coming. It had been 30 years since Donald and Max Bleacher had
00:22:43
teamed up to take on the NBA. The first time the league tried to revoke his ownership after he
00:22:48
moved the glippers to LA without permission. But the world had changed since then, even if Donald
00:22:53
himself had not. And now here he was, the deal guy who always got the best deal. Getting out
00:23:00
maneuver at every turn, by his own wife. Pearson Shelley maintained that with two experts providing
00:23:09
a diagnosis of dementia, Shelley was empowered to remove Donald from the trust. Ownership of the
00:23:15
glippers would then lay in Shelley's hands. She alone had the authority to sell the team and she
00:23:21
exercised that authority. So we had no alternative. I gave my word to Steve. I have to go through with it.
00:23:28
I don't want them to dismantle the team and the players didn't want to play.
00:23:35
So I signed it. I gave him my word. And as far as I knew, it was done. I mean, it was very hard for me to do.
00:23:45
I remember learning that this is how Shelley had sold the team. It was being reported there
00:23:52
was an agreement to sell the team for two billion dollars. But no details. Something was up.
00:23:58
So I started asking all the big groups what was going on. They told me they've been assured
00:24:04
Shelley had the authority to sell the team without Donald's consent. That he'd been found mentally
00:24:09
incompetent and removed from the trust. What? My jaw dropped. I remember sitting in my car downstairs
00:24:20
from our TV studio in Los Angeles and calling the head of our news desk, David Kraft.
00:24:25
My hands were shaking as I typed out the story and read it back to him. I told him we now have three
00:24:32
sources on this that I was confident it was accurate. That no one, not even Shelley side, was denying it.
00:24:38
But I still couldn't believe it. After 60 years of marriage, after a lifetime of putting up
00:24:46
with her husband's affairs and indiscretions, Shelley Sterling was selling the team out from
00:24:51
under him in the most painful public way. By getting him declared mentally incompetent,
00:24:59
it was so cold blooded. Such a power move. I couldn't believe this little old lady with the Chanel bag
00:25:06
had it entered to do it. But her old friend Marley and Cellsman knew she did.
00:25:11
Once he's declared incompetent and she's in charge, then she's in charge. That was very smart on
00:25:19
her part. I mean, that was so very smart. I was going against my husband who wouldn't talk to me.
00:25:27
My kids didn't like too much what I was doing and I didn't know if I was doing the right thing.
00:25:33
If I thought there was the least amount of chance that we could own it, I would have stuck with it.
00:25:40
But I didn't see any chance. The team was like going to be sold at auction and they would get a
00:25:49
piece of it or something. But Cells is too smart. She goes for that last nickel in the asphalt.
00:25:57
Monday, 3, 15 pm from an outside collar. I'm leaving my name Donald Sterling and I'm going to have
00:26:15
you lose your license. How dare you give my medical records from my head to a law firm who hired you.
00:26:22
They hired you for the purpose of finding me incompetent. I'm not incompetent. You're fucking incompetent.
00:26:28
Donald Sterling was livid. He called Dr. Placer and Dr. Sparrow.
00:26:35
Why would you give my personal mental records to another to a lawyer for the purpose of suing me?
00:26:44
I'm just so excited. I'm so angry. I'm going to call you CLA now and I'm going to get you fired from
00:26:53
UCLA because you're nothing but a draft. Have your insurance company call me. My name is Donald Sterling
00:26:59
and Jason for God and if you look at your bill, you see that your material was addressed to a lawyer.
00:27:05
So obviously he sent me to you and you to read a conspiracy to do this. Thank you very much, doctor.
00:27:12
Donald directed his lawyers to sue the NBA for one billion in damages. Then he directed them to
00:27:20
revoke the trust, the one that Shelley had already removed him from. But it was too late. Donald
00:27:27
finally realized his back was against the wall. Shelley had sold the team and indemnified the NBA
00:27:34
against any lawsuit he brought against the leaf. In other words, even if Donald prevailed in his
00:27:39
one billion dollar lawsuit against the NBA, the Sterling family trust would pay the damages,
00:27:44
which meant Donald was effectively suing himself. There was only one place for him to fight
00:27:51
and one person left for him to fight with. Shelley and within six weeks right after the 4th
00:27:59
of July weekend, they all ended up where everything with Donald and Shelley eventually ends up.
00:28:05
In court. So we go to trial. It's a shit show. And it's no other way to say it. I'm not exaggerating. There's
00:28:16
40 print reporters, radio people, television people, and we're walking in and they're literally
00:28:23
surrounding us. And like some of the cameramen are backing up like dominoes or bowling pins.
00:28:29
One of them tripped on a trash can and knocked about three of them down. Okay. I was one of those
00:28:35
reporters outside the courthouse in downtown Los Angeles. The place has seen its share of big trials
00:28:41
over the years. O.J. Simpson, Michael Jackson's doctor, Phil Spector. This was right up there in
00:28:46
terms of fanfare. Donald's lawyers tried to argue that he wasn't mentally incapacitated.
00:28:52
Shelley's lawyers said that was irrelevant because they had followed the trust and found two
00:28:57
doctors who said that he was. But the whole thing came down to a random piece of probate code.
00:29:03
probate code section 1310b Adam Streisand was Steve Balmer's lawyer.
00:29:09
Barely anybody even knows they're like no cases. And it basically says the probate judge has the
00:29:16
power to authorize the trustee to take actions to avoid imminent harm and loss to the trust.
00:29:23
Even if they appeal, you know, Shelley's lawyer has never heard of 1310b but this sounds great.
00:29:29
He's not the only person who found that provision but that's okay.
00:29:33
Remember this success as many parents and failure as an orphan.
00:29:37
This is about as exciting as probate court is ever going to get.
00:29:41
All of us reporters in the courtroom were live tweeting the play-by-play.
00:29:45
Like called Donald first. And Bert stands up.
00:29:49
Pierce chose Bert Field, a legendary entertainment lawyer with a reputation for making the most
00:29:53
powerful men in Hollywood squirm. To question an angry and defiant Donald.
00:29:58
Ten minutes later, Donald was crying. Absolutely crying. And then Donald starts attacking
00:30:03
Bert Fields. What a stupid question. A first-year law student would ask a question better than that.
00:30:09
And of course, I'm sitting there loving it because this guy's unraveling in front of the judge,
00:30:15
you know, making it clearer and clearer that the termination of the two doctors was correct.
00:30:19
And only took him about 10 minutes. At one point, as Shelley was leaving the stand,
00:30:23
Donald said to her in open court, "Get away from me, you pig."
00:30:28
And the courtroom is stunned. And Judge Alana says, "I want the record to reflect
00:30:36
that when Mrs. Sterling walked over to her husband after she left the stand,
00:30:41
he called her a pig." Now, that was the news of the day. It was very sad, okay.
00:30:48
The Donald just wasn't with it. He was confused. He was angered. He came to court in.
00:30:53
Sweat pajamas and socks with bedroom slippers on. And he just never looked good.
00:31:00
Towards the end of the trial, the lawyers decided Steve Balmer and Donald Sterling should meet.
00:31:06
So Donald's lawyer, Bobby Samini, helped to arrange a meeting. A sort of last-ditch effort to help
00:31:12
Donald accept the inevitable. Sterling looks to him and he's like, "Hey, you're in the computer
00:31:18
business, right?" And Balmer says, "Yeah, I mean, kind of." And he's like, "What's the name of your
00:31:25
company again?" And Balmer chuckles and he goes, "Microsoft?" And Sterling goes, "Oh yeah, yeah, I know
00:31:32
those guys." And I tell you, I watched this meeting and I heard some of the funniest things I'd
00:31:38
ever heard. So at one point, after the first hour, Donald tells Steve Balmer, "I'm curious about
00:31:47
one thing." And Balmer's like, "Of course, this is the question." And he looks at him and he goes,
00:31:52
"You really have $2 billion?" And of course, we all started cracking up, right? And Balmer says,
00:31:59
"Yes." And he goes, "Do you have $2 billion in cash?" And he goes, "I have the money, don't worry,
00:32:04
you know, I can call the bankers and they can verify the funds." And then Sterling starts laughing and he
00:32:09
looks at him and he goes, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life." And Balmer looks
00:32:14
at him and goes, "What do you mean?" He goes, "Why would anybody have $2 billion in cash?" Like,
00:32:18
you should invest the money or pay off your debt, right? But you'd be stupid to have that kind of cash.
00:32:26
Donald Sterling still felt like he knew it all. But Steve Balmer reflected the future of the NBA,
00:32:31
"Tech money." And Sterling was a dinosaur without dated values.
00:32:36
It was like sitting there and watching the change of the guard, right? The old guard and the new guard.
00:32:41
It's just in a judge's rule against Los Angeles Clippers owner, Donald Sterling,
00:32:47
and cleared the way for the $2 billion sale of the team to ex-Microsoft CEO, Steve Balmer.
00:32:53
She sold the Clippers to Steve Balmer for a record of $2 billion. What had long been regarded as
00:33:01
the laughing stock of the NBA had sold for more money than any team ever had.
00:33:06
Shelly Sterling took questions from reporters on the steps of the courthouse after the judge gave
00:33:13
his ruling. "I want to thank everybody who has helped me in my attorneys. They were fabulous.
00:33:20
And this is going to be a good thing for the city, for the league, for my family, for all of us.
00:33:27
And I just want to thank you all." She opened up like a flower. Like I flower that opens only once a year.
00:33:34
All I want to do now is get some sleep. I haven't slept in weeks. You mean you don't like going to court?
00:33:40
Oh, I love it. We want to go forward understanding that it was one woman who stood up against her
00:33:48
husband who had the courage to go to court and she prevailed. At the time, I was right there with peers.
00:33:56
I thought Shelly really had broken with Donald. For good. But Shelly still felt like she had unfinished
00:34:05
business. Not with Donald, with V. The mistress who wanted too much, who took Donald's generosity for
00:34:14
granted, who broke the rules of the mistress code. "I mean, he paid her life. He gave her cars,
00:34:21
put him in her name. Why would somebody try to ruin a person who's so good to you?"
00:34:26
It's not that different from the way Donald saw his players. "I support them and give them
00:34:32
food and clothes and cars and houses. Who gives it to them? Someone else gives it to them."
00:34:41
Donald and Shelly expected a certain loyalty and gratitude from those who somehow benefited from
00:34:47
their wealth. And when she released that tape, they didn't just break the rules of the mistress code.
00:34:53
She took a match to the whole thing. If you weren't supposed to flaunt the affair in front of the
00:34:59
wife, you most definitely were not supposed to flaunt it in front of the whole world. Make it the
00:35:04
top story on the evening news. But it thrust V into the public eye and she loved the attention.
00:35:11
Nobody wanted to go to the clippers. No one even knew the clippers existed until I came into the
00:35:15
franchise. She's like, "They owe me everything." And it's not only that, it was prior to bringing
00:35:23
the heat in the scandal. It's more like, "Let's change it up. Let's switch it up and let's do this.
00:35:27
Let's bring Chris Pau. Let's bring... Love it. Like Griffin, I love it. Let's start spending some
00:35:32
money. Let's start acting like we actually do care. Let's give LA a reason to look forward to basketball
00:35:37
again and look at us now. Yes. I think she liked to be in the public eye. A lot. And as you could see by
00:35:47
the visor she was wearing and all the shenanigans that would happen, it was because she liked to be in
00:35:54
the public eye. I guess most people do. Macna Hurray was V's lawyer through all of this.
00:35:59
For her, it was just like, you know, it was like Aphrodisiac. She was just so happy and I told
00:36:06
of, you know, in this country it's only last 15 minutes, you know, not more than that. You know, the media
00:36:12
will find somebody else, you know, more exotic than you in few months. But she says, you know, I can't
00:36:19
write it for a few months. V got her 15 minutes of fame and not much more. The general public was
00:36:26
pretty quick to forget about her, but not Shelley. Why one Shelley to know that you bugged me a house?
00:36:34
No. Why not? Why don't you, because the sister will be hassling you all the time?
00:36:43
Shelly had won her lawsuit against Donald. She'd come out two billion ahead.
00:36:48
But she still pressed forward with her lawsuit against V for all those gifts Donald had given her.
00:36:55
She was going to get her revenge on the woman who had so disrupted their lives.
00:37:01
And thanks to V, she also had a whole bunch of tapes.
00:37:05
Do you think I can hide the house? How do we hide it?
00:37:12
We should have put it under Lucy's name. She doesn't owe anyone anything. No one knows who Lucy is.
00:37:22
But it's okay. We can have the house. Yes, it's very recorded, and it's recorded, huh?
00:37:30
I can always change title. Do you know what? I can always change title whenever.
00:37:38
It's not easy to change title, because people have how did you first buy it?
00:37:47
Those tapes provided proof that Donald and V had hid the gifts from Shelly.
00:37:52
In April 2015, a judge ordered V. Staviano to return $2.6 million worth of gifts to Shelly.
00:38:01
Shelly won again. Shelly Sterling, as proud as she is of what she did for the Clippers,
00:38:10
is much prouder about what she did in the Staviano case.
00:38:16
And still, even that was not enough. Shelly could not and would not let it go.
00:38:22
I hear it over and over and over all the time. Shelly hears it over and over because she still listens
00:38:37
to those tapes. I listen to them all the time. Shelly Sterling is in her mid 80s now.
00:39:00
She still drives herself from Malibu into town several times a week. Town, of course,
00:39:06
meaning Beverly Hills. And when she gets into her Mercedes-Benz station wagon,
00:39:11
she still sometimes puts those tapes on. I think it's important that you and I go in front of the
00:39:19
world. You care about me. You love me. You care about me. I'm your little girl. I'm your little
00:39:27
princess the way you used to tell me that I was. Why would you do that? I don't know. Maybe punishing
00:39:33
myself. I want to keep you everything. You understand that? I would rather give you the crash,
00:39:40
but that's not going to make you happy. That's why I have to buy you that car because you're stubborn
00:39:48
and you're pushing and I love you so much. And not only do I want that car. I want a new camera.
00:39:56
When you listen to them, what are you here? I hear this horrible person who had no nothing going
00:40:04
in her life, but the wonderful things that my husband had done for her just slap him in the face.
00:40:11
I'm sure it still stings her the way Vistiviano caused them so much trouble. You can hear it in her voice
00:40:21
that it does. But I also suspect when she listens to those tapes, she's really trying to understand
00:40:29
the other voice. Her husband. I don't know why he did it, but he did it. All these years, all these
00:40:37
battles, all these affairs. V wasn't the first. It's doubtful she'll be the last. And it's not
00:40:45
clear she's even gone from Donald's life. Shelley may be interested in why V could have treated Donald
00:40:51
that way, but I bet Shelley is far more curious about why Donald treats her the way he does.
00:40:58
Well, he denies everything, you know, as a man denies. So, you know, did I want to split up my life
00:41:08
or did, you know, I mean, did Hillary Clinton leave Bill after this big scandal? You know, sometimes
00:41:15
you just take it and just overlook it. I reached out to Donald's sterling, but he wouldn't do an
00:41:25
interview. He hasn't done any in-depth interviews since that Anderson Cooper sit down five years ago.
00:41:32
Both he and Shelley seem nervous about what he might say. He says, "I don't want to be interviewed
00:41:37
anybody, ever, ever, ever. You know, we're all trying to get over it and just go on from here. That's all."
00:41:44
Five years ago, I really believe Shelley when she said she'd broken from Donald. I thought for sure
00:41:52
everything had changed for them. I mean, how couldn't it have? His mistress had outed him as a racist.
00:41:59
She'd had him declared mentally incompetent and sold the team out from under him.
00:42:02
He called her a pig in court. What kind of marriage survives all of that?
00:42:08
A year later, I went out to their house in Malibu for a follow-up piece.
00:42:13
We did the interview in her kitchen. They were flowers on the table. At the end, I asked
00:42:20
two of them were from and she said, "Donald sent them for Mother's Day." Where are you in Donald now?
00:42:29
We're together. We were separated for a while and my life went on. His life went on.
00:42:39
I'm a very self-sufficient person, so I don't depend on a person to make me happy.
00:42:47
I make my own happiness. So how did Donald get you back? We were always pretty much friends after
00:42:54
all this happened. And then we just, you know, over 60 years, they've become almost everything to
00:43:04
each other. He loves Shelley. He'll never want to separate from her. He really does love her.
00:43:12
Who takes him to the doctor's appointment? Who makes sure he has his medications?
00:43:15
Who makes sure the maid shows up at his house? Who tries to protect them from countless
00:43:19
mistresses and con men? It's Shelley. He could not live without her. I know he loves me, you know,
00:43:26
and he'll never divorce me. It's like two people with their backs to each other holding each other up.
00:43:32
It's one let's go. The other one falls down. They hold each other up.
00:43:40
Shelley sterling loves Donald and I've always said on his deathbed there will be one person for sure
00:43:45
next to him holding his hand and it'll be Shelley. She loves the guy.
00:43:51
If you look at Shelley and Donald's lives now, not much has changed. They sort of settled back into
00:44:00
the uneasy balance that they had existed in for all those years before Vista Viano came along.
00:44:07
Shelley still goes to Clipper Games. The only difference is Donald can't.
00:44:11
And I love the games and I enjoy them and I sit there and I scream and I yell just like I did before.
00:44:18
Go to the hoop and they're a hell of a lot richer. He's happy about selling the team now.
00:44:24
Yes, he tells a lot of people. He says, you know, I had to sell the team but I feel like I fell off a tree
00:44:32
and I landed on a pile of gold. At the end of the day, they got $2 billion. So is it a win?
00:44:41
Is it a loss? I don't know but we don't have to deal with that anymore and that's not a part of our
00:44:45
league. So for us, yeah, the old saying rings true. You're so poor all you have is your money.
00:44:50
Oh yeah, I mean, I don't feel sorry for Donald Sterling. Some people may say he got the last laugh
00:44:57
but auto money in the world ain't going to change his reputation. His reputation is destroyed.
00:45:04
We know who he is. He's made his bed and you can't take that money with you.
00:45:12
Hopefully, that was a lesson to be learned that, you know, racism and racism mentality will not
00:45:20
be tolerated. It's always a little uncomfortable bringing up Donald Sterling's name to anyone with
00:45:32
the clippers these days. They've moved on, tried to forget he ever existed or had power over them.
00:45:40
If they could, they'd write him completely out of their history. The team has changed so much
00:45:46
under Steve Balmer. The league has changed so much. Hell, the whole world has changed so much.
00:45:51
It's hard to remember there was ever a time when an owner could heckle his players from his courts
00:45:57
at seats or ogle them in the locker room. Things have changed. Even the term owner has gone out of
00:46:04
fashion. Adam Silver now calls them governors. The Donald Sterling tape forced a reckoning.
00:46:10
The fault line gave. The earth shook and shifted. But earthquakes and reckonings never fix everything.
00:46:18
They only release some of the pressure and it's always only a matter of time until there's another.
00:46:26
Another reckoning. Yeah, we're going to have another one and another one and we're going to keep
00:46:30
getting better. You know, but this was important and this was a group of guys that stood up too. A league
00:46:38
that stood up against something. A commissioner that stood up. Coach stood up. Players stood up.
00:46:45
At the end of the day, it was a beautiful moment for a league.
00:47:03
This re-release was produced by Megan Coil and edited by me, Prithi Bharatthan. Our associate producer
00:47:26
is Gus Navarro. Our line producer is Kat Sanky. Sean Howard is our sound designer. Prithi Bharatthan
00:47:33
is our head of audio. The original series was reported and hosted by Ramona Shelburn. Our
00:47:39
executive producer was Julia Lowry Henderson. Our story editors were Aaron Lighten, Jody Avergan,
00:47:46
and Raina Kelly. Our producers were Meredith Houghtonott, Ryan Kylot, Steven Hoffman, and Lauren
00:47:53
Gaffney. Our archival producer was Jason Helig and our associate producer was Vindi Anton.
00:47:59
Production assistants were Durwin Graham, Steve Wolff, and Jefferson Yen. Production managers were
00:48:05
Kat Sanky and Jennifer Thorpe. The original music by Hannah Sprown makes engineering by Hannah Sprown
00:48:12
and David Herman. The 3530 podcast team also includes Mitra Kaboli, Andrew Mambo, Ryan Nantel.
00:48:19
Our executive producers for ESPN were Connor Shell, Rob King, Libby Geist, and Kevin Marida.
00:48:27
And our director of development was Adam Newhouse. The ESPN audio team included Trial Keller,
00:48:35
Tom Ricks, Megan Judge, Peachy Nassini, and Ryan Granner. This season was produced in collaboration
00:48:42
with Western Sound. The executive producer of Western Sound is Ben Adair. The Western sound team
00:48:48
also includes Cameron Kell and Stephanie Aguilar. Fact checking was done by Natalie Mead,
00:48:54
and legal research was done by Hailey Fox. Council for Creators provided legal counsel.
00:48:59
Special thanks to Stacey Pressman, Mario Ruiz, Chris Morales, and ESPN LA Radio. Jimmy Kimmel Live,
00:49:07
courtesy of 1205 AM Productions, LLC, and Jimmy Kimmel Live. You can find out more about our
00:49:13
podcasts at 30for30podcast.com. Thanks for listening.
00:49:24
[BLANK_AUDIO]
