Magic and Isiah famously kissed before games.
In an upcoming book, basketball’s Magic Johnson blames Isiah Thomas for rumors that Johnson was gay at the time Johnson stunned the world by announcing he was HIV-positive.
“Isiah kept questioning people about it,” Magic says in the book “When the Game Was Ours,” written by Johnson, Larry Bird and longtime NBA reporter by Jackie MacMullan. “I couldn’t believe that. The one guy I thought I could count on had all these doubts. It was like he kicked me in the stomach.”
Johnson’s announcement in 1991 while with the Los Angeles Lakers that he was HIV-positive made headlines around the world and led to intense speculation on how he got the virus. Johnson has always maintained he got it from sleeping with women, even though that was not a common route of transmission in the U.S.
A sports editor at the time, I had long heard rumors that Johnson engaged in man-to-man sex, something he has always denied. “I’m far from homosexual. Far from it,” he told Sports Illustrated at the time.
But Johnson is blaming Thomas, then with the Detroit Pistons, for spreading rumors that he was gay. In the book, Johnson’s agent Lon Rosen recalled this exchange he said he has with Thomas:
Thomas: “I keep hearing Magic is gay.”
“C’mon, Isiah, you know Earvin better than anyone,” Rosen replies.
“I know,” Thomas answers, “but I don’t know what he’s doing when he’s out there in L.A.”
On Thursday, Thomas told Sports Illustrated that he felt blindsided by the allegations, saying Johnson has never confronted him about them. He also denied what Rosen said.
“What most people don’t know is, before Magic had HIV, my brother had HIV,” Thomas said. “My brother died of HIV, AIDS, drug abuse. So I knew way more about the disease, because I was living with it in my house. …
“Magic acted and responded off some really bad information that he got,” Thomas went on. “Whatever friendship we had, I thought it was bulls— that he believed that. Let me put it to you this way: If he and I were such close friends, if I was questioning his sexuality, then I was questioning mine too. That’s how idiotic it is.”
What adds a twist to this was that Thomas was the one player most welcoming to Johnson when he returned to the NBA in 1992; the two had been longtime close friends. This was at a time, MacMullan said on ESPN, that players were afraid to even practice with Johnson lest they contract HIV from his sweat, and his return was initially very difficult.
Thomas was the first player to embrace Johnson at the 1992 NBA All-Star Game. Despite this, Johnson acknowledges in the book that he was among those who prevented Thomas from playing for the 1992 USA Dream Team at the Olympics.
“I don’t discriminate,” Thomas said. “I don’t believe any race or ethnic group or social group should be discriminated against, because I have been discriminated against, and I know it would be wrong for me to discriminate. I think Magic has been misled on a lot of things, and unfortunately this has been another one of them.”
It’s sad to think that Johnson has held a grudge over Thomas because of this for nearly 20 years. The “Magic is gay” rumor was everywhere at the time, prurient curiosity when HIV/AIDS was still a mystery to most Americans. One didn’t need Isiah Thomas to spread something that was already out there.
It was obviously an extremely painful time for Johnson (and his wife) to have to deal with the prejudice and discrimination that surrounded people with HIV. For a pro athlete, especially, being rumored as gay just increased the burden. But why not talk to Thomas, someone Johnson was so close with he built a room in his house just for when Thomas visited?
on Oct 23rd, 2009 at 6:44 AM
Magic and Isiah are and always have been two of the all-time biggest phonies.
I lived in LA during Magic’s career with the Lakers. At the time it was absolutely nauseating to hear and read all about what a supposedly great human being Magic was.
It’s great to finally see Magic and Isiah being exposed as the bozos they always seemed to be.
on Oct 23rd, 2009 at 11:49 AM
NBA players are nauseatingly dumb when the discussion touches on anything gay – by far the worst of any of the major league sports, IMHO. Sure, ball players in the other major sports blurt out derogatory slurs in the heat of the moment, but the NBA players just keep digging themselves into deeper pits of stupidity the more they open their mouths for explanation.
on Oct 23rd, 2009 at 1:06 PM
I never thought I’d find myself rooting for Isiah Thomas in anything. Meanwhile, I always thought Magic slept with men because he was close with Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall…not that anyone really cares at this point about a stuttering fat commentator and a washed up athletic admin at this point. And why did Magic block him from the Olympics? I thought that was Jordan’s doing? WTH?
on Oct 23rd, 2009 at 2:36 PM
i’m sorry but i still don’t buy that Magic got HIV from a woman. he has pinged my gaydar since I was a kid, the rumors he is on the D.L. ring all too true….
on Oct 23rd, 2009 at 6:38 PM
This is just real messy. It sounds catty, sloppy, and messy.
on Oct 23rd, 2009 at 10:13 PM
i hope they’ll eventually be able to get over this and resume their friendship…i hate when folks allow a bunch of he say she say to ruin their relationship, obviously they were really good friends in the past
on Oct 24th, 2009 at 12:04 AM
I’m sorry Ric, okay??? Geez.
on Oct 24th, 2009 at 8:50 AM
Now we know that anyone who spends more than a night in California has to be gay…at least for one night.
on Oct 24th, 2009 at 8:54 AM
Isiah is upset about the rumors that he is really straight.
on Oct 24th, 2009 at 2:32 PM
I heard rumors that he was into men way before he got HIV.
Magic should just keep his mouth shut.
on Oct 25th, 2009 at 2:37 PM
i smell lawsuit.
on Oct 26th, 2009 at 6:11 PM
Lawsuit for what? Even today let alone in 1991, people associated AIDS with gay men. How is that Isiah’s fault? Let alone the fact that Magic somehow survived when so many people were dying and some think he was given experimental meds that most people couldn’t get access to pre-1996 cocktail.
Magic just needs to shut his mouth and not write books.
on May 30th, 2010 at 4:50 PM
Howard Stern stated on his show that he thought Magic was bisexual and was spotted in gay bars in the 1970′s. This wouldn’t surprise me at all.