Oprah Winfrey Was In Serious Negotiations To Buy The Clippers

Kevin Winter/Getty Images for NAACP Image AwardsOprah Winfrey recently revealed that rumors about her trying to buy the Clippers are, in fact, true.

While Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was eventually the highest bidder for the NBA team with his whopping $2 billion offer following the Donald Sterling scandal, Winfrey says she also went back and forth in negotiations.

While on the set of "Selma," the movie Winfrey is producing and starring in about Martin Luther King and Lyndon Johnson, she spoke to "Entertainment Tonight" about thinking it would be "so much fun" to be a team owner.

"I was in the middle of these scenes while making the bid - literally the first day I was going to shoot … I had to run upstairs in the building, find a fax machine - we're putting in the bid and I'm signing it, and I'm thinking, 'How ironic is that? I'm playing a woman who can't get the right to vote, and now you're putting in a bid [to buy a professional sports team].'"

Ultimately, Winfrey explains that the high price tag wouldn't have been a savvy business decision.

"We went over that number, and then we went over that number again, and by the time we got to the final number [it was no longer] a good business decision. But for me? I was doing it. You know, my lawyers were like, 'Do you even like basketball?' I said, Yes, I LOVE basketball! And this is gonna be so much fun!'… I thought it would be entertaining."

Eventually, Winfrey pulled out of negotiations, saying, "$2 billion - OK, now that's my limit!"

The only reason the media mogul is happy she didn't win the bid is that now friends won't be hitting her up for tickets all time.

"That's one reason I'm glad we didn't get it - because a lot of people would be like, 'Oprah? Got any Clippers tickets?'"