The former owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, Donald Sterling, has filed for divorce from his wife, Shelly Sterling, after 60 years of marriage.
According to ABC News, the reason for the divorce was cited as "irreconcilable differences" and the filing was done at the Los Angeles Superior Court by Sterling's attorney, Bobby Samini.
The divorce papers indicated the official date of separation as August 1, 2012, the news outlet reported.
The divorce comes as Donald is embroiled in a still-unsettled lawsuit against his wife and the NBA for selling his team to Steve Ballmer, a former Microsoft CEO, for $2 billion. The report said that it was Shelly who handled negotiations with Ballmer following recommendations from Sterling's doctors. They assessed that he was unable to handle business dealings.
E! Online reported that Samini has also filed a "petition in the Probate Court demanding that Shelly Sterling provide an accounting of the Clipper's sale proceeds. Currently, one half of the sale price ($1 billion) is being held in an escrow account and have not been disbursed to my client."
Four months before this, a woman named V. Stiviano was ordered by a judge to turn over the house keys to a $1.8 million house owned by Sterling. Stiviano is allegedly the billionaire's mistress, according to Fox News. The woman is also asked to pay Shelly $800,000 for gifts, such as luxury vehicles, given to her by Donald.
This decision comes one year after Donald was involved in a leaked recording that revealed his bias against black people. TMZ was the source of the said video, where the billionaire was heard telling his girlfriend she shouldn't be bringing black people to watch the games, even if this included Magic Johnson.
The NBA decided to ban Sterling for life for this racist remark and was fined $2.5 million. The incident also led to the sale of the Clippers.
At the height of this controversy last year, Shelly granted a TV interview with Barbara Walters and said that she had plans of divorcing her husband. "For the last 20 years, I've been seeing attorneys for a divorce," she told Walters on ABC's 20/20. "In fact, I have here-- I just filed-- I was going to file the petition. I signed the petition for a divorce. And it came to almost being filed. And then, my financial adviser and my attorney said to me, 'Not now.'"
She also told Walters her husband could be suffering from "the onset of dementia."
