Magic’s son ‘revelling’ in buzz over his gayness
LOS ANGELES, CALIF. The 20-yearold son of basketball great Magic Johnson is surprised by the public interest in his being gay, something that he revealed to his supportive family several years ago.
Earvin Johnson III, known as E. J., says he feels like he’s coming out of the closet a second time and that he’s “revelling” in the experience — even though news of his sexual orientation broke publicly sooner than he had planned.
In an interview posted Tuesday on the YouTube.com talk show Gwissues, Johnson said he didn’t feel violated after TMZ recently revealed he’s gay.
“I always wanted to come into the spotlight,” he said. “I always had dreams and plans of doing my own thing and creating my own image, so it came a little sooner than I thought it would, but this is still something I knew I would be going through and would have to experience.”
The younger Johnson is a junior at New York University studying event management and design with an interest in f ashion, journalism and media.
He said the public reaction has ranged from support to criticism, including online postings involving “nasty things about me and what I’m doing.”
“It’s almost like they’re attacking me for being me and so to that I can only say, ‘Well, I can only be myself, so I don’t know really what you want me to do,’ ” he told Gwissues host and interviewer Howard Bragman, a publicist who recently began representing Johnson.