EJ Johnson, the son of Magic and Cookie
Johnson, said this week that his father at first rejected him after
he came out gay.
EJ and his mother discussed EJ's coming
out while speaking with Jada Pinkett Smith on her Facebook Watch
series Red
Table Talk.
Cookie Johnson said that the
conversation was “a little tough.”
“My husband is the kind of person,
like, he reacts quickly,” Cookie said. “Everything that came to
the top of his head, he just let it out.”
Cookie said that Magic was opposed to
EJ being gay. She recounted Magic saying, “This is not what I
wanted for my son. And do you realize what you're saying, because
the world is not going to like that, and do you want to live this
life?”
The following day, EJ said, Magic came
to his room and told him, “We're going to get through this and I
just need time.” “And we both started crying a little bit,” EJ
said.
EJ added that his relationship with his
father remained tense until he moved out of the house.
“But then, I moved to New York to go
to college and when he came back to visit, he picked me up for dinner
and was like … he hugged me so hard, he almost broke my back and
then at that point I was like, we’re gonna be okay. I could really
feel the love. We’re gonna be fine,” EJ said.
Magic Johnson has publicly supported
his son.