Reader Discretion for topics of Sexual Abuse and Pedophilia
A little over a year ago, During NBA All-Star Weekend in Salt Lake City, the NBA announced that Hall of Fame Utah Jazz player, Karl Malone, would be judging the Slam Dunk Contest. This sparked mounds of backlash against the league and Malone online. While Malone was known for being a two-time MVP, leading the Jazz to Back-to-Back finals in the 90s and being the league’s third all-time leading scorer, his personal life and disturbing past have come to the attention of the public in recent years. In 1983, Malone was twenty years old and impregnated a thirteen-year-old girl. Malone denied that her son was his for years, even after a paternity test proved he was the father. This resulted in Malone and Bell’s family settling out of court. This situation has been in the public since the late 90s, however, it has only resurfaced in recent years. Fans have been calling the NBA out for essentially turning a blind eye to Malone’s actions. This begs the question, What should the NBA do about Karl Malone?
What Is Confirmed
In 1983, When Karl Malone was a twenty-year-old sophomore at Louisiana Tech, he impregnated a thirteen-year-old girl named Gloria Bell, whose family was close with Malone as they had lived in the same neighborhood. At the time, the girl’s family chose not to press statutory rape charges due to his reputation and inability to support Bell’s child if he were in jail. Shortly after Malone was drafted into the NBA, Gloria’s family filed a paternity suit, however. Malone denied paternity of Gloria’s son, Demetress. A blood test revealed a 99% match between Demetress and Malone. The Bells requested that Malone pay $125 a week in child support payments, however, he refused as it was “too much” despite making a little over a million just in career earnings by his sophomore season. By the late 80s, the two parties had reached an out-of-court settlement, which allowed Malone to publicly not acknowledge Demetress Bell as his son. In 1998, a report that Malone had been a defendant in multiple paternity suits came out, however, this largely went under the public eye and didn’t do much damage to Malone’s reputation. Karl Malone and Demetress Bell did not speak until Bell graduated high school, where Malone reportedly told Bell he would have to “make his way on his own.” In 2008, Bell was drafted by the Buffalo Bills in the seventh round of the NFL Draft. His life story and relationship with Karl Malone began receiving media attention following this, in part due to an ESPN interview with Bell. After Bell retired from the NFL in 2013, it was reported he and Malone had begun to mend their relationship. These aren’t allegations, this isn’t a theory out to get Karl Malone, and the Bells weren’t elaborate scam artists; This has all been public information for the last 25 years, and Demetress Bell is living evidence of Malone impregnating a middle school-aged girl while he was in college.
Malone has fathered seven known children with three different women. The same paternity suit that revealed Malone to be the father of Demetress Bell also revealed him to be the father of twins Cheryl and Daryl Ford. The Ford twins were the children of Malone and his then-high school girlfriend, who gave birth to them when they were 17. Malone raised the twins for a short period of time after their birth before abandoning them and their mother. After the report that Malone had been an absentee father, he accepted the twins as his children and became a part of their lives. Cheryl went on to play in the WNBA and won three championships with the Detroit Shock in the 2000s. To this day, Malone has still yet to publicly acknowledge Bell, by name, as his son.
Unrelated to his paternity suits, in 2004, it was revealed Karl Malone had made inappropriate comments toward Vanessa Bryant, widow of then-Lakers’ teammate Kobe Bryant. Malone had once told Vanessa, “I’m hunting for little Mexican girls,” in response to a joke by Bryant. For context, Vanessa Bryant is of Hispanic heritage. There was also an incident where Vanessa was sitting courtside and had offered Malone’s son to sit with her. Malone then told her to “come over here and sit next to me and give me a big hug.” Malone then asked Vanessa if she liked him and if she could keep a secret. Vanessa felt uncomfortable and told Malone that they were both married, and he was old enough to be her father, to which Malone replied, “Oh, like your daddy?” to which Vanessa walked away. When confronted by Kobe Bryant, Malone did not deny it and said, “You know me.” When later questioned about the interaction in a 2015 interview, Malone offered to fight Kobe Bryant if he was still upset.
In an interview during Salt Lake City’s 2023 NBA All-Star weekend, Malone deliberately brushed off questions about his past as a father. “I’m not discussing any of that. I don’t care… That’s my life, it’s my personal life, and I’ll deal with that like I’ve had to deal with everything. So, whatever. Whatever, I’m human”
What the NBA can do
In 2021, the Toronto Blue Jays and MLB severed ties with and banned Hall of Fame second baseman Roberto Alomar following a sexual harassment investigation. In my opinion, there is no reason why the NBA and Adam Silver cannot do the same to Malone. I believe the NBA isn’t speaking out about Malone out of fear of soiling fans and reputations. It’s easy for the league to suspend Ja Morant for flashing a gun on Instagram Live or distance themselves from John Stockton due to his anti-vax and COVID conspiracies. However, it’s harder to completely cut off a two-time MVP and the third-all-time scoring leader. If both Malone and Stockton were to be distanced from the Jazz, it would essentially ruin that 90s Jazz Squad and the team’s reputation as a whole. What other all-time Jazzmen would represent not only that team and its history, but that city? Adrian Dantley? Andrei Kirilenko? Carlos Boozer? Malone and Stockton put Utah on the map in the late 80s and 90s, and ever since, there hasn’t been a player of their caliber on the Jazz, and without them, there would be a big hole left at the Delta Center. It would also mean that the team probably wouldn’t want to sell Mitchell & Ness jerseys or any other merchandise related to the two, which means less money for the team and league. However, that shouldn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter if a player leads your franchise in points. Karl Malone, the player, is a lot different from Karl Malone, the man. The NBA hasn’t taken some action against Malone even though him fathering a child with a thirteen-year-old has been public information since the late 90s; it quickly became swept under the rug in the public eye, even to this day there are still many people who don’t know. If enough people don’t know about Malone’s past, the NBA will pretend they don’t either. The NBA would only cut ties or speak out against Malone if a large enough majority of fans or viewership took notice of this. The league and Jazz would do anything to continue to milk their cash cow, including protecting a proven statutory rapist, and it’s been on full display for the past 25 years. Adam Silver and the NBA need to split ties with Karl Malone and cannot just wait until the public majority has found out about who he is as a person on their own.
