Wilt Chamberlain’s friend spent ten days with him in Hawaii and witnessed the NBA legend going to bed with 23 different girls.

Wilt Chamberlain claimed to have slept with 20,000 women during his life. In the book “Wilt: Larger Than Life,” Rod Roddewig, a contemporary of Wilt’s, shared a story about how the NBA legend came up with that number.

Roddewig met the Chamberlain before moving to Hawaii in the mid-eighties. He witnessed Wilt’s affairs with a number of women while the two spent time at his penthouse in Honolulu. Roddewig and Wilt were there for ten days, and every time Chamberlain would go to bed with a different girl, Rod would put a check in his Daytimer. After ten days, there were 23 checks.

“That’s 2.3 girls per day. He took 2.3 and divided it in half, to be conservative. Then deducted 15 from his current age, multiplied that by 1.2 women per day, and that’s how he came up with twenty thousand,” Roddewig said.

Public perception of Wilt and Magic

When Chamberlain revealed the number of women he had slept with, the public perception of the basketball great changed. People started calling him names, expressing pity for his lifestyle that turned him into “a reference for sexual braggadocio.” But according to Wilt, that wasn’t his intent.

“I’m not boasting. I don’t see all this lovemaking as any kind of conquest. The point of using the number [twenty thousand] was to show that sex was a great part of my life as basketball was a great part of my life. That’s the reason I was single.”

About a month after Chamberlain’s book came out, Magic Johnson, another prominent black athlete, surprised everyone by revealing he had tested positive for HIV. This revelation sent shockwaves throughout the public, as Johnson was not only a universally adored NBA player but also an advocate for safe sex and HIV awareness.

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“We would have had more championships and more success if it wasn’t for him

The timing of Magic’s announcement, so soon after Chamberlain’s book release, led to the public lumping the two superstars together and condemning them for their publicized promiscuity.

However, Wilt’s family and friends stayed on his side, saying, “The passage was a throwaway line that Wilt inserted to create publicity for the book.” They also blamed the publisher for manipulating Wilt into including it.

Despite the public’s initial condemnation, Magic and Wilt fought against the stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS. They used their platform to educate people and advocate for compassion toward those who had the virus. Their efforts eventually played a significant role in changing public perception and increasing awareness about AIDS.

Wilt was always a gentleman

The Big Dipper openly admitted that sex played an important role in his life. He loved being around women and was always a true gentleman, handing out compliments left and right.

“He would stop in the middle of a conversation if a pretty woman walked by,” Chamberlain’s friend Fluke Fluker said.” He would either look at her or make a comment to the people he was talking to. And it wasn’t a gross or vulgar or disrespectful comment. Or he’d call the woman over and compliment her on her looks, in a nice, respectful way. He’d say, ‘I just want you to know you’re looking very beautiful today. And I wanted to make sure someone told you that.'”

Rod Roddewig testified to Chamberlain’s chivalry. However, Wilt’s sexual prowess raised questions about his influence as a public person. But what most people characterized as a boasting attempt, Chamberlain himself described as a deeper insight into his life, one in which sex played a huge role.

The Hall of Famer never denied that, regardless of the aftermath of his infamous twenty-thousand passage.