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Donald Sterling has issued a statement in response to the leaked audio tape that makes him sound like a horrible, horrible racist.

The recording is of Sterling – the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers – berating his girlfriend of appearing in public with African-Americans, referring to her as "stupid" for thinking skin color doesn’t matter.

"It bothers me a lot that you want to broadcast that you’re associating with black people," Sterling says to V. Stiviano at one point in the nine-minute tape.

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As a rebuttal, Sterling and the Clippers organization say via statement: "We have heard the tape on TMZ.  We do not know if it is legitimate or it has been altered."

The statement goes on to paint Stiviano in a negative light.

 

"We do know that the woman on the tape — who we believe released it to TMZ — is the defendant in a lawsuit brought by the Sterling family, alleging that she embezzled more than $1.8 million, who told Mr. Sterling that she would ‘get even."

It continues:

"Mr. Sterling is emphatic that what is reflected on that recording is not consistent with, nor does it reflect his views, beliefs or feelings. It is the antithesis of who he is, what he believes and how he has lived his life.

He feels terrible that such sentiments are being attributed to him and apologizes to anyone who might have been hurt by them."

While many within the NBA have come out and castigated Sterling for the remarks (LeBron James says there’s "no room for him in our league"), Snoop Dogg likely summed it up best with the following on Instagram:

A message to the motherfucker that owns the Clippers, you bitch-ass redneck white bread chickenshit motherfucker:

F-ck you, your mama and everything connected to you, you racist piece of sh-t. F-ck you.