how did magic johnson get hiv

Earvin “Magic” Johnson Jr. (born August 14, 1959) is an American former professional basketball player and former president of basketball operations of the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Often regarded as the best point guard of all time, Johnson played 13 seasons for the Lakers and was honored as one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History in 1996. After winning championships in high school and college, Johnson was selected first overall in the 1979 NBA draft by the Lakers.

He won a championship and an NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Award in his rookie season, and won four more championships with the Lakers during the 1980s. Johnson retired abruptly in 1991 after announcing that he had contracted HIV, but returned to play in the 1992 All-Star Game, winning the All-Star MVP Award. After protests from his fellow players, he retired again for four years, but returned in 1996, at age 36, to play 32 games for the Lakers before retiring for the third and final time.

1992

Johnson’s career achievements include three NBA MVP Awards, nine NBA Finals appearances, twelve All-Star games, and ten All-NBA First and Second Team nominations. He led the league in regular season assists four times, and is the NBA’s all-time leader in average assists per game, at 11.2. Johnson was a member of the 1992 United States men’s Olympic basketball team (“The Dream Team”), which won the Olympic gold medal in 1992. After leaving the NBA in 1992, Johnson formed the Magic Johnson All-Stars, a barnstorming team that traveled around the world playing exhibition games.

Johnson became a two-time inductee into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame—being enshrined in 2002 for his individual career, and again in 2010 as a member of the “Dream Team”. His friendship and rivalry with Boston Celtics star Larry Bird, whom he faced in the 1979 NCAA finals and three NBA championship series, are well documented.

1991

Since his retirement, Johnson has been an advocate for HIV/AIDS prevention and safe sex, as well as an entrepreneur, philanthropist, broadcaster and motivational speaker. His public announcement of his HIV-positive status in 1991 helped dispel the stereotype, still widely held at the time, that HIV was a “gay disease” that heterosexuals need not worry about; his bravery in making this announcement was widely commended.

Named by Ebony magazine as one of America’s most influential black businessmen in 2009, Johnson has numerous business interests, and was a part-owner of the Lakers for several years. Johnson also is part of a group of investors that purchased the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2012 and the Los Angeles Sparks in 2014. During Johnson’s ownership of both teams, the Sparks won the 2016 WNBA championship, and the Dodgers won the 2020 World Series championship. Combining his playing career and sports ownership career, Johnson has 10 NBA championships, five each as a player and later as a minority-owner of the Lakers.

31 Years Later He Reflects On Contracting HIV

On November 7th, 1991, Earvin “Magic” Johnson sent shockwaves through the basketball community and the world when he announced his abrupt retirement from basketball due to contracting HIV. In an instant, the Los Angeles Lakers superstar’s life had transformed.

Speaking with Gayle King on CBS Mornings, Johnson reflected upon his journey 31 years later, CBS News reported.

“You just sit there and say, what does this mean? Am I gonna die?’”Johnson recalled.

At the time of his diagnosis, Johnson and many others believed his diagnosis was a death sentence.

“I had to really learn a lot about the disease, HIV as well as AIDS,” he remembered. “I had to make sure that I was open-minded enough to ask a lot of questions and get a lot of information from different people.”

As he prepared for the start of the 1991-92 NBA season, Johnson learned that he contracted HIV in a routine physical. After flying to a pre-season game with Utah Jazz, he was called back to Los Angeles so that Dr. Michael Mellman, the team physician for the Lakers, could give him the life-changing news in person. As expected, he was “devastated” when he learned of the news.

100 times

“I’m asking him 100 times, ‘Are you sure?’”Johnson recalls asking the doctor. “And they say, ‘Hey, we ran the tests a couple of times, and yes, you do have HIV.’ And so I just lost it right there, you know?”

Although Mellman informed him that he had a chance to live for a long time with all the new drugs that were being developed at the time, the most challenging aspect of his diagnosis, he said, was having to tell his wife Cookie about the virus, who he married the month prior.

“It was hard because I loved her so much and I hated to hurt her,” he said.

When Johnson delivered the news to Cookie, she was concerned about their newborn child.

“It wasn’t how he got it that was important to me,” she said. “It was, ‘You’re possibly going to die.’ And that trumped everything,” she told CBS News.

Johnson expressed his relief when Cookie’s and the baby’s test results came back negative.

“Yes, because I was scared to death,” he said. “I wanted to make sure that she was gonna be OK, the baby was gonna be OK, and then I could move forward with trying to make sure I was gonna be OK.”

Initially, Cookie did not want Magic to have a public press conference to announce his short-lived retirement because of the stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS.

“At that time, people weren’t educated. So they thought you couldn’t touch people, you couldn’t hug people,” she said. “And I didn’t want people to treat us like we were lepers.”

U.S. Olympic

After going public with his diagnosis, Johnson launched the Magic Johnson Foundation to raise awareness about the virus. And then, he began lobbying Congress and the White House to invest more money for education and to fight the disease.

But his passion for the game was still alive and he eventually made a comeback.

He was voted onto the NBA All-Star team in 1992 without playing a single game and would play in the U.S. Olympic “Dream Team” in Barcelona, Spain.

“It proved to be the right decision,” he said. “It helped people who were living with not just HIV and AIDS, but with any disease, that you can live on, you can live a productive life.”

He would retire again, make another comeback before officially calling it quits in 1996.

Since that time, Johnson has become a successful businessman as CEO of Magic Johnson Enterprises. He’s currently a co-owner of the Los Angeles Sparks and Los Angeles Dodgers, and boasts a portfolio that estimates his net worth at over $600 million

While his HIV is still undetectable, he still takes his medication every day.

“A cocktail, once a day,” he said. “It went from three times a day, to now just once. And so everything is great.”

AIDS virus

According to NBA sources, the Lakers knew “about two weeks ago” that something was wrong with Johnson. When he was informed Thursday that he had tested positive for the AIDS virus, he immediately announced that he would hold a news conference. A league official expressed concern to Johnson, fearing that the questions would be intrusive and painful for Johnson to answer. But Johnson insisted otherwise.

Tonight Johnson maintained a high profile, appearing on “The Arsenio Hall Show.” He came on stage at the beginning of the show with Hall, and he received an extended standing ovation.

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Johnson, with his trademark smile as broad as ever, tried to quiet the crowd by calling “time out,” but then chants of “Magic, Magic” rang out even louder.

Hall asked Johnson why he was on the show. “Having HIV virus, I want everybody to practice safe sex, be aware what’s going on,” Johnson said. ” . . . I want to educate the public. We don’t have to run from it, be ashamed.”

His HIV Diagnosis

It’s November 7, 1991, and Magic Johnson has just announced at a press event that he has tested HIV positive. Beside him at the podium is his wife of only two months and the soon-to-be mother of his son, Cookie Johnson.

The nation is utterly floored by the news. This is because, in 1991, Magic Johnson was the face of the NBA, possibly one of the most beloved players at the time.

At the time of his diagnosis, Johnson thought the virus was a death sentence.

Devastated

“I had to really learn a lot about the disease, HIV as well as AIDS. I had to make sure that I was open-minded enough to ask a lot of questions, go get a lot of information from different people,” he said.

Johnson first learned of his diagnosis after a routine physical ahead of the 1991-92 NBA season. He was called back home from a pre-season game in Utah, so that Lakers team physician Dr. Michael Mellman could deliver the news in person. When Johnson first heard the news, he was “devastated,” he said.

Magic Johnson continues to live with HIV and is an example of how new treatments are improving people’s standard of life with the disease.