Lakers owner Jeanie Buss says at her first NBA Board of Governors meeting, she was grabbed inappropriately by one of her contemporaries
Los Angeles Lakers team owner Jeanie Buss recently did an interview with broadcaster Graham Bensinger where she alleged a fellow NBA owner once groped her at the league’s Board of Governors meeting.
During the conversation, Buss also shed some light on the challenges she has faced during her time in the league. As not only a female but the daughter of longtime franchise owner Jerry Buss, she grew up and became an executive under the biggest of microscopes in Tinsel Town.
“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,” the Lakers owner told Bensinger. “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.”
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The Lakers’ leading lady has been in charge of the team since her father’s death in 2013 when his 66% interest in the team was passed along to his six children. Jeanie Buss has since consolidated control of the team and is the face of ownership.
Buss says that the incident, along with other hazing she endured when she was younger and inexperienced, has led her to help fellow owners who have come along in later years.
“But everybody that came after me, I could help them in the room because they’d be new — they’d be the the new person,” the Lakers’ boss said. “So the next new person was Mark Cuban. And I made sure that from day one, I put my hand out to him and said like, ‘Hey, if I can help you understand any of this stuff, if there’s any questions, like here’s my number. Call me now and I’ll help you, and I’ll support you.’”
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