LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling claimed today that a bad batch of Viagra was responsible for his racist rant against black people.
In an interview this morning with KABC radio, the embattled billionaire sought to defuse the controversy that erupted last Friday when TMZ published a recording of Sterling telling his girlfriend he didn’t want black people at Clippers games.
Although most observers assumed the incident was simply the latest manifestation of his long-held racism, Sterling himself has a more innocent explanation: a bad reaction to sexual performance pills he ordered online.
“When you’re 80 years old you can’t keep up with an attractive woman in her 30s without a little medical help,” he told host Doug Elmer. “Unfortunately my doctors refused to prescribe Viagra because of my heart condition.
“So I decided to go online and buy some performance pills myself. You never know what you get with these shady offshore websites. I started taking the pills and I immediately knew my behavior was different. But I needed them. I couldn’t perform without them.
“Just look at the list of side effects for these medications: anxiety, depression, hallucinations. I can’t be held responsible for what I say when I’m on these pills. And who knows if they were even really Viagra? I could have been taking some weird Chinese herb or something.
“Like most seniors, I’m on at least 11 different drugs right now. With all those interactions, is it a surprise that I might say something crazy I don’t really believe? I love black people. This is all just a huge misunderstanding.”
Celebrities often try to blame drugs and alcohol when caught using racist language. Many, like Mel Gibson in 2006, check into drug rehab shortly after the controversy erupts in order to begin the process of triaging their public image.
Donald Sterling appears to be the first to suggest, however, that non-addictive prescription medication could play a role in such incidents. Although erectile dysfunction pills do carry a long list of side effects, provoking racist thoughts against blacks and Mexicans does not appear to be included.
That fact did not escape the host, who asked Sterling if he was shirking responsibility for his comments.
“I’m saying it wasn’t really me on those tapes,” he responded. “When I’m taking those pills, I’m not myself. I say things I don’t mean. I do things I normally wouldn’t be able to do.
"I pay these czarnuches millions of dollars. I've taken more black men to the promised land than Harriet Tubman. Is society really going to crucify me just because I took some bad Viagra?"
