Man says he is the late NBA legend Wilt Chamberlain's son
theGRIO REPORT - A 50-year-old man says he recently discovered NBA legend Wilt Chamberlain is his father. Aaron Levi said he's spent 12 years trying to find out the identity of his birth parents...
A 50-year-old man says he recently discovered NBA legend Wilt Chamberlain is his father.
Aaron Levi said he’s spent 12 years trying to find out the identity of his birth parents.
“I am Wilt’s secret,” Levi told Sports Illustrated. “And I am the Chamberlain family’s secret.”
Levi’s journey began in 2003 when he decided to track down his parents. At the time, all he knew was that his mother was white and his father was a very tall African-American man.
Watch Levi describe the moment he knew Wilt Chamberlain was his father:
He was able to track down his mother through her maiden name, and when he finally met with her, she confirmed that he had been conceived after a one night stand with Chamberlain.
His mother said she met Chamberlain at a jazz club in 1964, where he asked for her number. They went out a few weeks later.
Levi’s mother told him that when Chamberlain heard that she was pregnant, he laughed and said, “Oh, so I’m gonna have a kid out there, huh?” He did not offer any financial assistance, though that was largely because she was “very clear” about her plans to put the baby up for adoption.
Although the story follows up on claims Chamberlain made in his memoir “A View From Above,” in which he stated that he had slept with 20,000 women, it does not mesh with Chamberlain’s insistence that he had never fathered a child.
There are other discrepancies in the story between Levi’s mother’s description of the father and Chamberlain’s description.
As the New York Daily News points out: “The paperwork from the Santa Clara County Social Services Ageny noted that Levi’s father was 6-10; Chamberlain was 7-1. It said he was born in Kansas; Chamberlain attended the University of Kansas but was a native of Philadelphia. And it said that he had a master’s degree; Chamberlain never finished college to earn a degree. However, the information was believed to be provided entirely by Elizabeth.”
Levi has reached out to Chamberlain’s family, but they have rejected him and refused to give up DNA.
“My life would be completely different,” Levi said, “if I had done this 20 years ago, when Wilt was still alive.”
