Donald Sterling, the former NBA team owner whose racist telephone rant precipitated his loss of the Los Angeles Clippers, on Friday sued the ex-girlfriend accused of leaking the audio and the entertainment-news outlet that broke the story, according to Variety.
The lawsuit accuses ex-girlfriend V. Stiviano of “surreptitiously” recording phone conversations between Sterling and her between September 2013 and April 2014, the report says. Her agents, according to the suit, then provided the audio to TMZ.
Sterling also alleges in the suit that the audio was “doctored” and that Sterling’s privacy rights were violated, Variety says.
A man identified as Sterling can be heard on the recordings talking about Stiviano's Instagram photo with former Los Angeles Laker Magic Johnson, saying, according to the news outlet, “It bothers me a lot that you want to broadcast that you’re associating with black people. You can sleep with [black people]. You can bring them in, you can do whatever you want. The little I ask you is not to promote it … and not to bring them to my games.”
In the aftermath of the scandal, Sterling and his wife, Shelly, sold the Clippers under pressure for $2 billion to former Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer.
Read more at Variety.