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.
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. "Whatever friendship we had, I thought it was bulls- that he believed that. "Magic acted and responded off some really bad information that he got,'' Thomas went on. So I knew way more about the disease, because I was living with it in my house. "My brother died of HIV, AIDS, drug abuse. "What most people don't know is, before Magic had HIV, my brother had HIV,'' Thomas said. On Thursday, Thomas told Sports Illustrated that he felt blindsided by the allegations, saying Johnson has never confronted him about them.
"I know,'' Thomas answers, "but I don't know what he's doing when he's out there in L.A.'' "C'mon, Isiah, you know Earvin better than anyone,'' Rosen replies. In the book, Johnson's agent Lon Rosen recalled this exchange he said he has with Thomas: Far from it," he told Sports Illustrated at the time.īut Johnson is blaming Thomas, then with the Detroit Pistons, for spreading rumors that he was gay. 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.Ī sports editor at the time, I had long heard rumors that Johnson engaged in man-to-man sex, something he has always denied. 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. It was like he kicked me in the stomach."
The one guy I thought I could count on had all these doubts. "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. 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. Magic and Isiah famously kissed before games.