Magic Johnson Opens Up About Living with HIV 30 Years After Being Diagnosed

Basketball legend Magic Johnson opened up to “CBS Mornings” about the day his basketball career was interrupted by a stunning HIV diagnosis 30 years ago.

Johnson discussed the shocking moment three decades ago and how it affected his life. The Los Angeles Laker star was a newlywed who had no idea how much time he’d have left to live or how the virus would affect his pregnant wife and their unborn baby.

“You sit there and say, what does this mean? Am I going to die?” Johnson told Gayle King.

In the exclusive interview, Johnson revealed that he didn’t know much about the disease when he got the devastating diagnosis.

“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.

While the NBA legend said it was hard to process the news, he admitted nothing was more challenging than preparing to tell his wife.

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

When Johnson broke the news to his wife Cookie,  she thought it was “probably through sexual contact,” since he hadn’t had any blood transfusions, but she was worried about something else.

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

Johnson said he was relieved when Cookie 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.”

Johnson fought the stigma associated with HIV and launched the Magic Johnson Foundation to raise awareness about the virus, using his resources to push Congress and the White House to spend money to fight the disease.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZFX8N_u9Tw