Donald Sterling's wife thinks he has dementia, the Los Angeles Times reports. Shelly Sterling sat down with Barbara Walters to talk about her husband's racially insensitive comments and the interview he gave to Anderson Cooper.
"I really think personally he has dementia," she said in the interview with Walters.
Despite Donald telling his girlfriend/mistress V. Stiviano not to associate in public with black people, Shelly said that she doesn't think he's a racist but admitted that Donald has changed.
"I felt bad for him," Shelly said. "Because he's not the man I know. Or I knew. There's something wrong."
Cooper, who was granted Donald's first interview since the racist scandal, disagreed with Shelly and said that he thinks Donald is perfectly fine.
"He did not strike me as someone who is suffering from dementia," Cooper said, adding that he is not an expert on the illness. "Donald Sterling without council there or without a PR team there clearly had things he wanted to say. During the interview he was very present. If I skipped around a question, he would sometimes come back to the questions I asked so he could finish his answers. Certainly, if he had clear signs of dementia... I would not allow the interview to go forward."
During the interview, the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers said that he made those comments to Stiviano because he was jealous and wanted to get her to sleep with him. Donald also talked about Magic Johnson, telling Cooper that while he was sorry for the remarks he made about the athlete in the leaked audio he felt Johnson has not done anything for the black community.
At one point, he told Cooper that Johnson should not be respected because he "made love to every girl in America" and contracted HIV.
"He acts so holy," Sterling said. "He made love to every girl in every city in America, and he had AIDS, and when he had those AIDS, I went to my synagogue and I prayed for him... Is he an example for children?"
Following the release of the audio, NBA commissioner Adam Silver banned Donald from the NBA for life and is also pressuring the Board of Governors to force him to sell the Clippers. Donald was also fined.
