On Friday, V. Stiviano sat down with Barbara Walters for an interview that was supposed to include embattled Clippers owner Donald Sterling. Sterling dropped out but Stiviano kept it interesting by calling herself a “silly rabbit.” And that’s not even the weirdest part.
Just watch the clip above, as Stiviano calls herself Sterling’s “right hand … arm.” Note per Shadow and Act, the interview is split into two parts. When the first 10 minutes ends, it’s not done, there’s a commercial and more to watch.
The Daily News reports that moments before the televised chat, Sterling was seen yelling at Stiviano to “shut the fuck up” after calling her a “media whore” in a hotel elevator. Stiviano was trying to convince Sterling to sit down with Walters as he promised but failed. After Stiviano, already dressed in a white suit for her Walters interview, exited the elevator, Sterling continued to rant to a guy companion, screaming “She’s f—-king crazy! I can’t deal with her! She’s nuts!”
Elsewhere, Sterling’s wife Rochelle Sterling may not be as blameless as she purports regarding her husband’s racism. She was named personally in a 2004 lawsuit against the couple for housing discrimination against blacks and Latinos in the apartment buildings the Sterlings own, according to the Daily Beast, which was settled for $2.765 million.
“Sumner Davenport declares that when she worked for Sterling she often accompanied Rochelle Sterling on apartment inspections. Rochelle Sterling would regularly pose as a government official in order to gain access to tenants’ apartments, and during the inspections Sterling directed her to record, among other things, tenants’ ethnicity,” noted federal Judge A. Howard Matz.
The defense contended that the information regarding ethnicity was in response to a request by an unnamed FBI agent in the wake of 9/11 that Sterling’s company “make every possible effort to learn whether any tenants in his building are foreign nationals.”
The judge noted the plaintiff’s contention that the true purpose of the bogus “official” inspections Rochelle Sterling conducted was “to harass and intimidate African-American and Latino tenants.”
Mrs. Sterling was even caught on video during one her impersonations by one of her tenants. Mr. Sterling was also sued by Davenport for sexual harassment in 2003. Sumner lost that case at trial.
In a 2009 deposition, according to the LA Times, Mrs. Sterling was heard making derogatory statements specifically about Latino tenants.
Former on-site manager Maira Oliva described Rochelle Sterling’s visiting the apartment building she worked at on South Ardmore Avenue.
Oliva: “She said, ‘Oh, my God. This is so filthy. I can’t remodel my apartments the way that I want because Latinos are so filthy.”
Attorney: “Did she say those exact words, ‘Latinos are so filthy’?”
Oliva: “I can’t remodel my building the way I want and that the building was filthy because of the Latinos.”
And here’s a weird tidbit, Donald and Rochelle Sterling went to the same high school as V. Stiviano, just 48 years earlier. Donald’s born last name is Tokowitz.
The more this story continues, the stranger it becomes.
Image via ABC News.