Screenshot Graham Bensinger/Youtube
Los Angeles Lakers president Jeanie Buss has accused a fellow NBA owner of groping her at a board of governors meeting in 1995.
In an interview with Graham Bensinger that was released on Wednesday, Buss said that the incident happened during a break in the meeting, when she was standing in line for the buffet.
“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. 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. It made me really self-conscious.”
Buss told Bensinger she didn’t back down from that owner.
“I just gave him a dirty look, like back off,” Buss said. “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.”
