In a recent podcast with Stephen A. Smith, the former Two and a Half Men star, Charlie Sheen, expressed skepticism about the legendary claim that Wilt Chamberlain slept with 20,000 women. The comment rose when the host asked Sheen how many sexual partners he had throughout the years.
Sheen laughed and replied by stating that he doesn’t, but after being demanded for an approximation, he stated it would be around “A couple thousand maybe”.
To this, Smith asked, “It wasn’t Wilt Chamberlain’s 20,000 women?” and then Sheen goes on to express his skepticism about the number. He says that “If you do the math on Wilt’s claims, doesn’t that break down to like one gal every 20 minutes, if you use the time frame that he refers to that in”
Smith then observes that it can be possible if Chamberlain was with 5 women at a time, and it’s a number that he won’t be able to put past Charlie Sheen as well. But Sheen brushes it off by saying, “I never made it to five. Not enough room in the bedroom. C’mon, let’s be realistic here.”
It’s hilarious how Charlie Sheen was the voice of reason during this exchange, but do keep in mind that the NBA legend’s claim was an exaggeration which was largely used as a metaphor to show that sex was a massive part of his life.
The Wilt Chamberlain’s 20,000 women claim
In his 1991 autobiography, A View From Above, Wilt Chamberlain, the NBA legend, claimed that he had slept with over 20,000 women. Now, what makes this claim rather impossible is the fact that he would need to have been with roughly 1.2 women every single day of his life from the time he turned 15.
This claim had been the centre of a heated debate, with even his fellow NBA stars like Shaquille O’Neal and Jerry West going on to state that this is an impossible exaggeration. However, this claim has become one of the enduring parts of Chamberlain’s “larger-than-life” legacy.
The figure is not something that sprang up after meticulous record-keeping. It was rather an exaggeration to make a point, which Wilt later explained that the bloated number was largely a metaphor, which shows that sex had always been an overarching part of his life, similar to basketball.
He wanted to exaggerate in order to emphasize the sheer volume of his experiences with so many partners over the years. But he did not want to be too graphic about it.
Much later in life, Chamberlain also expressed regret over the statement. He noted that he would have preferred to have one woman whom he truly cared for and loved instead of having meaningless encounters in the thousands.
