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Topics: Sport, Celebrity, News, Basketball, NBA, Sex and Relationships
Niamh Shackleton
Topics: Sport, Celebrity, News, Basketball, NBA, Sex and Relationships
The late Wilt Chamberlain wasn't just a legend on the basketball court, apparently he was in the bedroom too.
Chamberlain rose to fame in the NBA after making his basketball debut in 1959 for the Philadelphia Warriors.
He later moved to the Philadelphia 76ers, before going on to his third and final team, the LA Lakers.
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He retired from the sport in 1973 at the age of 36.
In the years that followed, Chamberlain released a book in 1991. It was titled A View From Above.
In the book - written in the basketball legend's own words - he detailed all parts of his life, his sex life included.
He penned: "Yes, that's correct, twenty thousand different ladies.
"At my age, that equals out to having sex with 1.2 women a day, every day since I was fifteen years old."
Chamberlain - who passed away in 1999 at the age of 63 - went on to receive backlash for his bold claim, including by late tennis star Arthur Ashe.
In his book Days of Grace, the Grand Slam winner said he pitied Chamberlain.
"I felt more pity than sorrow for Wilt as his macho accounting backfired on him in the form of a wave of public criticism," Ashe wrote.
He also fumed about Magic Johnson being very open about his sexual escapades.
Ashe continued: "African Americans have spent decades denying that we are sexual primitives by nature, as racists have argued since the days of slavery.
"These two college-trained Black men of international fame and immense personal wealth do their best to reinforce the stereotype."
But Chamberlain always defended his promiscuity.
"I’m not boasting… I don’t see all this lovemaking as any kind of conquest," he wrote in his book.
"All I’m saying is that I like women, people are curious about my sex life, and to most people, the number of women who have come and gone through my bedrooms - and various hotel rooms around the country - would boggle the mind."
Claiming it was 'natural', Chamberlain added: "I was just doing what was natural - chasing good-looking ladies, whoever they were and wherever they were."
Doing the maths, if what the late sportsman said was true, Chamberlain will have bed around 500 women a year, giving Australia's 'most sexually active woman' Annie Knight a run for her money.
The 26-year-old Aussie says she's slept with 300 people in a year.