“Isiah kept questioning people about it. I couldn’t believe that. The one guy I could count on had all these doubts. It was like he kicked me in the stomach.” — Magic Johnson, who admits in his new book When the Game was Ours that he lobbied against former Knicks president Isiah Thomas taking part in the Olympic Dream Team in 1992 — but only because Johnson believed Thomas spread rumors about him being gay or bisexual after he came out in 1991 as HIV-positive.
Responded Thomas: “I’m glad that he’s finally had the nerve and the courage to stand up and say it was him, as opposed to letting Michael Jordan take the blame for it all these years. I wish he would have had the courage to say this stuff to me face to face, as opposed to writing it in some damn book to sell and he can make money off it.”
Anthony in Nashville
There were rumors about Magic’s sexual exploits well before he was diagnosed with HIV. I knew some people who claimed to have precise details on Magic’s “parties.”
These days I’m not sure what his deal is.
As far as his HIV status, all I’ll say is I am suspicious. I have never known anyone with HIV who got bigger once they started treatment.
Sam
@AnthonyinNashville: Are you suggesting that Magic Johnson LIED about being HIV+ in 1991, a time when stigma over HIV/AIDS was still pervasive throughout society? What reason could he have possibly had for doing that?
jason
HIV doesn’t cause AIDS. It’s the biggest con of all time. HIV is a harmless marker virus. The condition known as AIDS is caused mainly by diminished immunity as a result of poor lifestyles (eg sniffing amyl, taking drugs, hard partying, acquisition of syphilis, gonorrhea etc).
tinkerbell
@Jason: That’s totally incorrect and dangerous information that you are putting out. HIV is an RNA retrovirus that DOES cause AIDS. Poor lifestyle choices do not kill 20/30-something, otherwise healthy people en masse, as we saw in the 1980s and 1990s, prior to HAART drugs. The human body is resilient enough to absorb poor lifestyle choices that will then manifest themselves at an older age. Chronic drug abuse, sedentary lifestyles, improper diet, etc will kill masses of people who indulge, but it will kill those masses when they are in their 60s-70s, not 20s and 30s. HIV does kill young people and it does cause AIDS.
germanluger
@tinkerbell
thats just what the BB’ers say to relieve themselves of guilt after spreading death around
Tommy
Note Isaiah Thomas didn’t deny the charges Magic throws at him. Thomas is a horrible human being (this being just the latest example) and I’m glad he’s the FORMER Knicks President.
Ree
@jason and @tinkerbell.
I found a study by 27 scientist state that HIV does not cause AIDS. It blew my mind what I read about the studies they conducted on people that had HIV. Look up Gary Null he talks about it and keep digging on the website that is where I found the word document that has two parts on AIDS, it is a lot of reading but please read it.
esr
Ree: Gary Null is an idiot who got his doctorate through mailorder.
He is nothing more than a shyster who makes money by promoting his quackery