In a recent interview with the BBC’s Katty Kay, NBA legend Earvin “Magic” Johnson recalled his journey with HIV after announcing his diagnosis in 1991. “Everything was going well, and then this devastating news comes,” Johnson told Kay. At the time, Johnson was a star player on the Los Angeles Lakers, leading the team to five championship wins between 1980 and 1988.
Johnson shared with Kay the advice his doctor gave him: Be positive and accept you will have HIV for the rest of your life; take your medicine every day; and exercise. “Do those three things, you give yourself a chance,” he recalled being told. Johnson, now 64, had just married to Cookie Johnson, who was pregnant at the time, two months before announcing his HIV diagnosis, Kay pointed out in the interview.
“The longest ride I ever had in my life was going home to tell Cookie I had HIV,” Johnson said. She slapped his face when he told her, but assured him that they would work through it together. His diagnosis not only threatened his personal life, but his career, too.
The 1992 NBA All-Star Game and Barcelona Olympics were approaching—meanwhile, players didn’t want to be on the court with Johnson, he said. They feared getting HIV, too, as stigma and misinformation around the disease and its transmission remained high in the early 1990s. The late David Stern, former commissioner of the NBA, helped change Johnson’s trajectory.
Stern’s decision to allow Johnson to play in the 1992 All-Star ga.
