The Donald Sterling saga has another chapter and, of course, it involves heading back to court. The billionaire has filed a lawsuit against TMZ and V. Stiviano for violating his privacy by publishing a recording of him making racist remarks that lead to him losing the Los Angeles Clippers.
Sterling filed the lawsuit on Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court, reports The Associated Press. He accuse the tabloid site and his girlfriend of violating his privacy and causing damage on a “scale of unparalleled and unprecedented magnitude.”
The recording at the center of the scandal was a September 2013 phone conversation between Stiviano and Sterling, in which he yells at her for being friends with African Americans in public. He even said that she should not go to Clippers games with African Americans. The recording surfaced on TMZ in April 2014.
According to The Los Angeles Times, Sterling says in the lawsuit that he was not aware that Stiviano was recording their phone conversations. He also accuses Stiviano, or an associate of hers, of giving the tape to TMZ.
Sterling also claims that Stiviano and TMZ conspired to edit the tapes to “reflect conversations … that either never occurred, were grossly distorted and/or stated out of context.”
After the tapes were leaked in April 2014, a series of events unfolded quickly that lead to Sterling losing ownership of the Clippers and being banned from the NBA for life. Sterling’s estranged wife Shelly was given court approval to sell the team to former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer for $2 billion.
In April 2015, Stiviano was ordered to pay Shelly Sterling $2.6 million to account for the lavish gifts she received from Sterling.
Sterling is also suing the NBA in federal court and added Shelly Sterling to the list of defendants in that case. He accused her of working with the league and commissioner Adam Silver to sell the team without his permission.
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