ESPN's Bill Simmons Sat Behind Donald Sterling On A Plane Once - And He Witnessed Some Absurd Behavior
APGrantland's Bill Simmons, a Los Angeles Clippers season ticket holder, wrote a big column on the Donald Sterling racism scandal.
The whole thing is worth reading, but the best part is when Simmons tells a story about sitting one row behind Sterling on a flight from Los Angeles to San Antonio last summer.
He calls Sterling "slimy and oily and greasy and gross and weird and strangely charming," and depicts him as needy and decidedly not self-aware.
Here are the five most absurd anecdotes.
1. Sterling didn't want to sit in the front row of first class, or sit in the window seat. He asked to move seats, and when the flight attendant said no he got "disappointed and confused."
2. He made V. Stiviano, his then-girlfriend, sit in coach.
3. He forced some poor seatmate to take his copy of the Wall Street Journal. Simmons writes:
"Once we were in the air, Sterling offered his Wall Street Journal to the guy sitting next to him. When the guy turned it down, Sterling abrasively snapped, "What's the matter, you don't want to learn about the news?!?"
"And then, something incredible happened - THE GUY TOOK THE NEWSPAPER! Sterling bullied him into reading it!"
4. Stiviano brought an enormous bowl of soup (Simmons calls it a 32-liter bowl) for Sterling to eat.
5. He flirted with the flight attendants and asked them what he should do in San Antonio. When they suggested a few bars, he said, "Bars aren't fun. I want fun!"
Sterling's past deplorable behavior is well documented. Now that he's being forced out of the NBA, the floodgates are open on any and all absurd Donald Sterling anecdotes.