The multi-millionaire owner of the L.A. Lakers, Jeanie Buss, claims that a fellow NBA owner grabbed her rear end at her very first NBA Board of Governors meeting.
Buss, who inherited controlling interest in the Lakers after her father, Jerry Buss, died in 2013, recently told her story on In Depth with Graham Bensinger.
XmJzKD_xoDIBensinger asked about the incident, and Buss replied, “It’s about bullying,” she exclaimed.
“As we were waiting, taking a break from the meeting, and everybody’s in line for the buffet for lunch during the lunch break, somebody grabs my ass,” she explained.
“I turn around, and I was so shocked. But it was like, again — if I didn’t have the confidence that my dad put in me, that was a moment where I wanted to shrink and to be nothing, that I would have, you know, gotten sick and said, ‘I gotta go.’ Do I really belong here? You know, I’m just really not one of the group, like I’m been singled out,” she said.
“It made me really self-conscious,” Buss admitted.
Apparently, Buss did not raise a fuss about it at the time.
“I just gave him a dirty look, like back off,” she admitted. “And I stayed in the room. I realized that I might not be able to gain the respect of the existing ownership groups. But everybody that came after me, I could help them in the room because they’d be the new person.”
Buss concluded by saying that the next new owner happened to be Mavericks Owner Mark Cuban, and she said she went out of her way to make sure he felt comfortable and informed about the job of being an NBA owner.
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