Shelly Sterling, the wife of Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling, told ABC’s Barbara Walters that she believes her husband is suffering from “the onset of dementia.”

ABC News reports that Sterling also told Walters that she will “eventually” divorce her estranged husband, and that if the NBA tries to force her to sell her half of the team, she will fight to keep it.

“To be honest with you, I'm wondering if a wife of one of the owners, and there's 30 owners, did something like that, said those racial slurs, would they oust the husband? Or would they leave the husband in?" she told Walters.

She added that the Clippers team is a “legacy to my family” and her “passion.”

An NBA spokesman said the rules would force her to sell her share. "Under the NBA Constitution, if a controlling owner's interest is terminated by a 3/4 vote, all other team owners' interests are automatically terminated as well," NBA spokesman Mike Bass said. "It doesn't matter whether the owners are related as is the case here. These are the rules to which all NBA owners agreed to as a condition of owning their team."

Her attorney disputed the league’s reading of the constitution, calling it self-serving.

Shelly Sterling