Larsa Pippen is finally admitting that dating Malik Beasley, who was married at the time of their brief romance, was a bad idea.
“That was a mistake. That was a mistake. But I had COVID, you know? I had COVID brain,” Pippen, 50, told pal Jason Lee on his titular show.
“I had COVID brain! I just had COVID. I was stuck in my house, I hadn’t gone anywhere, and he was there! He was, like, on me, you know? Like, ‘Lemme see you! Lemme come see you. Lemme come see you.’ And I thought, ‘OK, come see me!’”
“COVID brain” is a nickname for the brain fog symptom associated with the coronavirus.
Pippen and Beasley, 28, were first photographed holding hands in a Miami mall in November 2020, which “blindsided” his now-estranged wife, Montana Yao.
“I had just met him. Did you know that? I had just met him that day,” Pippen explained to Lee.
Though Yao, 27, filed for divorce shortly after the pictures went viral, Pippen has always maintained that she and Beasley got together after he and the Instagram model separated.
Four months later, Pippen and Beasley called it quits.
As for the drama surrounding the fact that he later became her son Scotty Pippen Jr.’s Los Angeles Lakers teammate, Larsa claimed to Lee, “They had a conversation when they were on the same team, and it was fine. It wasn’t like we had a really bad breakup or anything.”
The “Real Housewives of Miami” star — whose boyfriend is now Haitian-American basketball player Jeff Coby — added, “But at the same time, who am I supposed to date? The landscaper? Like, who am I supposed to date?”
Larsa — who “never [has] a shortage of guys” — theorized that “guys like” her because she’s “fun,” “good energy” and doesn’t “need s–t from anybody,” arguing that “that’s appealing to a lot of guys.”
She was previously married to retired NBA star Scottie Pippen, with whom she shares Scotty Jr., 24, son Preston Pippen, 22, son Justin Pippen, 19, and daughter Sophia Pippen, 16.
Beasly and Yao — who share son Makai, 6, and daughter Mia, 2 — eventually reconciled, with the athlete publicly apologizing in May 2021.
However, this past March, she filed for legal separation.