Source: George Wilhelm / Getty
Usually, upon the announcement, they’re lauded for their accomplishments back in the day Except for
Karl Malone. Malone was named a judge of the Dunk Contest for the upcoming event in Salt Lake City, Utah — the home state of the
Utah Jazz, where he played for 18 years.
However, it immediately drew outrage because of Malone’s dark past in the 1980s; the Hall of Famer impregnated a 13-year-old girl named Gloria Bell when he was a 20-year-old sophomore at Louisiana Tech.
“While Malone was a 20-year-old student and basketball star at Louisiana Tech University, he impregnated 13-year-old Gloria Bell. She gave birth to a son, Demetress Bell, a future NFL Lineman. Bell’s family could have pressed statutory rape charges but they didn’t because, according to Gloria, Malone was ’a neighborhood kid,’” writes
the Daily Beast.
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A blood test confirmed that he did father the child, but Malone largely ignored the child, named Demetress, and didn’t meet him until he graduated high school. The two lost touch, but as of 2018 had a close enough relationship
to where they spoke daily.
The abusive behavior against women didn’t stop there, as
Kobe Bryant’s agent
Rob Pelinka told
ESPN in 2004 that he made inappropriate comments towards Vanessa Bryant when she called him.
“When she called, Karl’s response was, ‘Why don’t you come over here and sit next to me and give me a big hug?’ Vanessa said, ‘Why? For what?’ And Karl replied, ‘If you do that it will be on the cover of every magazine in the country,’” Pelinka said. “When the game ended, Vanessa walked Malone’s son back to Karl. She told me that she asked Malone why he was wearing that [cowboy] hat. His response was, ‘I’m hunting for young Mexican girls.’ At which point Vanessa just walked away.”
Twitter is outraged at Malone judging the Dunk Contest and is urging people to research the facts of the case. See how social media is reacting below.
