Along with Ryan White, the teenage boy who fought the disease for himself and others, Magic changes the face of AIDS. No longer is it presumed to be a promiscuous gay man: It could be any of us, even a straight, world-famous multi-millionaire athlete.
The announcement also makes fellow Los Angeles Laker legend Wilt Chamberlain's book, Wilt: A View From Above, containing a claim about 20,000 women, one of the most ill-timed books ever.
The next day, Magic appears on The Arsenio Hall Show, to further explain, because he doesn't want anyone else to have to go through what he's going through.
A few weeks later, Magic appears in an Ancient Egypt-themed scene in Michael Jackson's video "Remember the Time." Eddie Murphy plays the Pharoah. And Eddie's pal Arsenio says, "I hope Magic lives a long time, so, someday, we can go up to him, and say, 'Hey, Magic: Remember the Time?'" It wasn't the only way we dealt with it through laughter: People joked that Magic was the only man who had HIV and gained weight.
It is 30 years later. A lot of progress has been made in preventing and treating HIV and AIDS. And Magic Johnson is alive, one of the richest men in the world, the owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and the operational part-owner of the Los Angeles Lakers. This means that he can tell both LeBron James and Clayton Kershaw to call him "Boss." It also means that he owned 2 World Championship-winning teams between October 27, 2020, when the Dodgers won the World Series, and July 20, 2021, when the Milwaukee Bucks succeeded the Lakers as NBA Champions.
Magic Johnson is alive... and Michael Jackson is dead. Not from AIDS.
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