Magic Johnson’s wife Cookie wrote a memoir called “Believing in Magic.” In it she revealed how Magic broke the news to her and all his former lovers that he is HIV positive. Cookie also went into detail about the numerous women Magic cheated on her with, during the 12 tumultuous years before they got married.
Johnson admitted he lived a ‘bachelor lifestyle before he got married, writing:
‘I am certain that I was infected by having unprotected sex with a woman who has the virus. The problem is that I can’t pinpoint the time, the place or the woman. It’s a matter of numbers. Before I was married, I was never at a loss for female companionship…I confess that after I arrived in LA in 1979, I did my best to accommodate as many women as I could – most of them through unprotected sex’.
In her memoir ‘Believing in Magic – My Story of Love, Overcoming Adversity, and Keeping the Faith,’ Cookie writes how she stood by his side, and how nothing after the marriage was as bad at the 12-year-on-and-off relationship they had before. They met their freshman year at Michigan State University and she agreed to be his girlfriend despite her misgivings about dating a basketball star.
In the book Cookie describes how one day after they were dating for three months she went to Johnson’s dorm only to find a girl in slippers and a robe ‘standing there like she paid rent, like that was her place and she was his girl’. Johnson claimed she was ‘just a friend’, an excuse he would use many times on her in the future.
Johnson also incurred Cookie’s anger when he took another girl to the Delta Ball, an exclusive event for the sorority Delta Sigma Theta. Cookie found out when she saw a photo of the two of them on the floor of Johnson’s car; the girl was wearing a gown and a fur coat while Johnson was in a tux. Johnson told Cookie that he ‘kinda had to (take her) – she’s just a friend’. It turned out that Johnson was actually dating the girl and broke up with Cookie rather than commit to her.
In the book she writes: ‘This would be the first of many times in our romance journey that (Johnson’s) fear of commitment and penchant for alpha male dominance would tear us apart’.
Johnson’s career took off after being a first-round draft pick for the NBA, joining the Los Angeles Lakers. Their relationship however remained stormy and he called off their wedding three times. Cookie wrote about how he would hang up on her, including the time their third engagement fell apart over his refusal to cancel his notorious Lakers pool party, which was men-only and frequented by strippers and groupies in bikinis.
Cookie was alarmed after calls from the wives of other Lakers players who said she had to get him to stop it, but he refused. Johnson repeatedly hung up the phone on Cookie when she challenged him until she gave him an ultimatum: the party or me. Johnson chose the party and hung up on her.
According to the book, when she tried to call him again he told her: ‘Get off the phone Cookie, I’m having my party…Would you just shut up? I’m getting off this phone’.
It took days for Johnson to call back – the book does not say if the party happened – and apologised, and the couple finally got married.
Cookie writes that as she walked down the aisle her friend Sharon burst into tears, causing her to cry too. She writes: ‘I knew what those tears were about; she knew all the ups and downs of my relationship with (Johnson) and her cry was a loud exaltation that, finally, after he back and forth and ups and downs, the love of my life was finally committing to forever with me’.
source: Daily Mail
