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And instead, President Ronald Reagan didn't even say the name of the illness until 1985, after it had already killed thousands of people. I mean, you have to think that if, if there had been a disease that emerged in 1981 that started killing thousands of straight men a year, that the government would have moved faster to find an effective treatment for it. You can give Magic credit for bringing an entirely new kind of attention to the AIDS crisis without papering over the hard work of a generation of activists before him who had pushed for attention to HIV/AIDS.īrennan: The vast majority of those who died from HIV in this period were men who had sex with men. I just think we also need to acknowledge that because he was wealthy and because he was famous, he had some advantages in the fight against HIV that others did not. And because he defied that quote unquote death sentence, he also provided a model for living with HIV for those who would be diagnosed in the years to come. And we’ll also talk about the years that followed - his successes off and back on the court, and what that meant for millions of people.īrennan: We can't ignore the fact that by coming out as HIV positive at a time before the development of effective treatments, when the disease was still seen as a death sentence that predominantly affected gay men, Magic Johnson changed the public face of HIV. This week we’re tackling the moment that marked the end of Showtime: Magic Johnson’s 1991 announcement that he had HIV and was retiring from the NBA, effective immediately.
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Maddox: And I'm Kareem Maddox, professional basketball player and podcaster. I'm Matt Brennan, television editor of the Los Angeles Times. (Shizuo Kambayashi / Associated Press)īrennan: Welcome to “Binge Sesh,” where this season we're diving into the stories behind HBO’s “Winning Time,” the saga of the Showtime-era L.A. Magic Johnson, left, with World Health Organization official Michael Merson and Sasagawa Health Foundation founder Ryoichi Sasagawa before a 1993 AIDS symposium in Tokyo. There were other people who reacted in completely different ways, right? People who said all kinds of things about him and the way he was living his life and whether or not he deserved to get HIV, which is obviously a terrible thing to say.Īt the end of the day, all these years later, Magic Johnson has changed a lot of things. As we heard in that montage, people were devastated because they loved Magic Johnson. Something that we've been hearing about Magic throughout the season, which is that he's one of the hardest workers in the NBA and as a basketball player.Īnd he decided to bring that approach to something that is really life or death. Kareem Maddox: My initial reaction is that Magic Johnson is an athlete, right? Like there's something in athletics where you could never allow your mind to wander to the worst-case scenario, meaning you're not allowed to consider losing. I've been a competitor my whole life.īrennan: What's your reaction to the contrast between what everyone else expected to happen and what Magic expected to happen? Magic Johnson: I never thought I was going to die. Times’ Bill Plaschke, Magic Johnson himself says he never thought that. I think the thing that strikes me the most about hearing that montage is the phrase “death sentence” being repeated over and over. 7, 1991, with NBA Commissioner David Stern and teammate Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at his side. Magic Johnson announces his HIV diagnosis and retirement from the Lakers on Nov. Richardson-Whitfield: Back then, you thought it was over, and it was confusing.īorenstien: It seemed absolutely inevitable that that was a death sentence. I just remember thinking, “It, it can't be true.” It was awful. Mary Weiss: He announced that November 7th. And we were in a meeting in one of the hotel rooms and our coach came in and said, “Magic Johnson just announced that he had HIV.”
Jim Hecht: I was at, uh, Central Oklahoma University for a debate tournament. Syrus Yarbrough: I was playing my first year at Santa Monica College. Salli Richardson-Whitfield: I was in Jamaica at a golf tournament. Max Borenstien: I remember literally where I was. Jim Hecht: It was a long time ago - it was 1991 - and I remember it like crystal clear.
Ron and Mary Weiss: I remember that horrible day.