V. Stiviano, known as María Vanessa Perez, gained notoriety as the ex-girlfriend of former LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling.
The relationship between Sterling and Stiviano was brought into the spotlight in 2014 when an audio recording, featuring Sterling making racist remarks towards Stiviano, was leaked by TMZ.
In the recording, Sterling can be heard expressing his discomfort with Stiviano publicly associating with Black people. He instructs her to not bring Black people to his games, despite her being Black and Mexican herself. The argument reportedly stemmed from a photo Stiviano posted on Instagram with NBA legend Magic Johnson.
Following the release of the recording, Sterling was handed a lifetime ban from the NBA. It was also revealed that Stiviano had received millions of dollars in gifts from Sterling, leading his wife, Rochelle Stein, to sue her. The court ruled in Stein’s favor and ordered Stiviano to pay back $2.6 million.
In the aftermath of the scandal, Sterling was deemed mentally incapacitated, with his wife becoming the sole trustee of the family trust. She eventually sold the LA Clippers to former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer for $2 billion.
The controversial story of Sterling and Stiviano’s relationship is now being portrayed in the limited series “Clipped: The Scandalous Story of L.A.’s Other Basketball Team”, available for streaming on Hulu.
