Magic Johnson’s Wife Shares Painful Details About Discovering He Was HIV Positive 6 Weeks After Their Marriage
Early this month, retired American professional basketball player, Magic Johnson, and his wife, Cookie Johnson, marked their 25th wedding anniversary with family and friends, despite Magic‘s HIV status.
Magic had announced in November, 1991, that he was retiring from the NBA after contracting the virus. Prior to the announcement, he had told his wife that he had the deadly virus and that his glittering basketball career was over.
The 57-year-old’s HIV diagnosis will forever be remembered as one of the turning moments in his family as it’s being revisited nearly 25 years later.
In a new book called “Believing In Magic”, Johnson’s wife, Cookie, revealed some secrets surrounding their life, especially that life-changing moment when her husband found out he was HIV positive.
According to Dailymail, Cookie, recounts the night her husband broke the devastating news to her and the humiliating ordeal she had to watch him go through in its immediate aftermath.
“My husband walked toward me, took my hand into his and slowly marched me back into the den … the two of us sat at the foot of our huge chaise lounge and I held my breath,” Cookie writes in the new book.
She also revealed that Magic, who lived a hard life of partying and unprotected sex, found out he was HIV positive six weeks into their marriage when she was pregnant with their first child.
The selfless wife, who has three kids with Magic narrates that on that night in 1991, the Los Angeles Lakers point guard ‘locked himself in a room and called the long list of women with whom he’d been intimate’. He could not remember how many women he had slept with, so, he tracked down as many as he could and gave each a call which would turn their lives upside down.
Speaking of how she found out from Magic, she writes that he called her up and said, ‘I’m coming home early because I have to tell you something.’ She tightened her grip on the receiver and could feel herself becoming nervous.
”I have to talk to you, but I’m on my way to the doctor’s office right now. I’ll tell you what’s going on when I get home, Cookie. I can’t tell you over the phone,” he had told her.
She added that her husband’s hushed words ‘sent a chill creeping over my heart’. She thought he had suffered a career-ending injury, wanted a divorce or was leaving her.
”What’s wrong, do you have AIDS or something?” to which he didn’t reply. An hour later he came back home.
My husband walked toward me, took my hand into his and slowly marched me back into the den…the two of us sat at the foot of our huge chaise lounge and I held my breath.”
According to her, Magic told her that she could leave him if she wanted but she grabbed his hand and put it on her belly and told him, ”We’re going to beat this together,” and ordered him to get on his knees and pray.
It was also gathered that Magic’s doctors had originally told him that he had 3 years to live and to deal with the stress he shifted into ‘warrior mode’ and buried himself in organization.’
In addition, Cookie said that she stopped thinking about the past and the future and she found that the only way to survive was to ‘breathe your way through this moment. And the next. And then each one that follows’.
”Every morning I would wake up in a panic, worried that I too might be HIV positive and die. Or worse, that my baby would be sick and not make it. The stress coursed through my veins like a poison, occupying practically every moment of my day,” Cookie revealed.
Fortunately, the tests came back negative for Cookie and the couple’s first baby, EJ.
Magic was convinced to become a public face of the condition by a friend and he has done so excellently for 25 years.
His revelation about his status forced him to retire from Basketball at the age of 32 and he was also faced with rumors of being gay or bisexual which he dismissed immediately.
After two attempts to rejoin the NBA, he left the game for good. He shifted his focus to the ‘Magic Johnson Foundation’, which has spent the last two decades educating people about HIV and encouraging community groups.
In her memoir, Cookie writes that throughout she has stood by his side. She added that any troubles they went through after their marriage were arguably not as bad as the 12-year on-and-off relationship they had before their wedding.
Photo credit: Associated Press/Getty Images
Thanks God she overcame all
I knew their story from way back and i salute her for standing by him, she’s a tough nut. A lot of women won’t stay back including me.
She’s a very strong woman wow! Not very many women can still stick with a man after such a revelation just 6 weeks into your marriage. I duff my hat for her oh. He owes her everything.
hmmmmnnn
She has tried