'Banned' LA Clippers boss Donald Sterling 'angrily' denies being racist in recorded phone call to pal

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ANI New York
Last Updated : May 09 2014 | 5:00 PM IST

Despised Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling, who has been banned by the NBA for using racist comments, has reportedly angrily denied that he is a racist while talking to a friend over the phone.

A recorded phone call that captured Sterling talking to a friend has revealed that the LA Clippers owner told his pal angrily that he knows that he is not a racist.

According to the New York Post, Sterling, while defending himself throughout the call to his friend, said that he grew up in East Los Angeles, and angrily said that his pal would die to get out of there.

Sterling, who is a 1952 graduate of famed Roosevelt High School in East LA, raged on that he had been the president of the high school there despite being a Jew, where 50 percent of the people were black and 40 percent were Hispanic.

The banned basketball team owner said that people in East LA must have had a good feeling for him because they let him be the president of a school where majority of people were blacks.

Sterling is reportedly in hot water for telling his girlfriend V. Stiviano to not bring black people to his games and also to not publish pictures of herself with basketball legend Magic Johnson.

The Clippers owner said that it breaks his heart that Johnson, a guy that he respects so much, would not stand up and say that they should get to the facts and talk to Sterling about the racist remarks, which nobody did.

Sterling has been suspended for life by the NBA commissioner Adam Silver and has also been prompted to sell his team.

However, Sterling told his friend in the latest recording that he would not sell the Clippers, saying that one cannot force someone to sell property in America, adding that he is a lawyer and that is his opinion.

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First Published: May 09 2014 | 4:50 PM IST

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