Hank Baskett opens up about the sex scandal that nearly cost him his marriage to Kendra Wilkinson.
Former NFL star Hank Baskett is finally opening up about the headline-making sex scandal that he and his wife, former Playboy Bunny Kendra Wilkinson, battled last year. YouTube model Ava Sabrina London, who is transgender, claimed that she had a tryst with Baskett last April in an interview with The National Enquirer, but that the two never had sexual intercourse.
Wilkinson allegedly laughed at rumors of the affair. But after "snooping" around and discovering an unexplained charge on a credit card last July, she reportedly "flipped out" and even flushed her wedding ring down the toilet. An audio tape was also later released in which Baskett can be heard offering to pay the woman for her silence.
A year later, Baskett is giving his side of the story, telling People that he never "engaged in anything." However, he does admit that an unidentified transgender woman did fondle him through his basketball shorts. The 32-year-old reality star claims the encounter all started when he wanted to buy marijuana from a couple in a grocery store parking lot. After they gave him a phone number to call, Baskett says he showed up at the address provided, then was shocked to see two naked transgender women making out with each other.
WATCH: How Does Kendra Wilkinson Define 'Hot?"
"I froze," Baskett says. "I didn't engage in anything. It was like a bank robbery. You never know when you'll freeze. I don't know if it was a couple of seconds or 15 seconds, because all I was saying was get out, get out, get out."
He says shame prevented him from telling the truth about the incident to his family and friends.
"I was this big former football player," he explains. "I was the alpha male. I could do anything to protect my family but I couldn't protect myself."
Despite admitting to kicking him out and threatening divorce, Wilkinson, 30, is now standing behind her husband.
"Hank was very naïve and gullible," she says. "He thinks everybody is his friend. That led him to the hell that we've lived."
"I don't say the word 'cheat,'" she adds about his reported transgressions. "I can say he was not loyal to me. I don't care about the act. I care about how he reacted to it and how I was told by the media what happened. That scarred me."
Baskett takes full responsibility for the fallout.
"I messed up," he says. "I put myself in a bad situation. And everything through me brought pain upon this family."
Baskett and Wilkinson have been married since 2009. The Kendra On Top stars have two kids together, Hank IV, 5, and Alijah, 1.
NEWS: Kendra Wilkinson Slams Holly Madison -- 'We Aren't Sisters, We Never Were'
ET recently caught up with Wilkinson's former Girls Next Door co-star, Holly Madison, who made bold claims accusing Playboy founder Hugh Hefner of verbal and emotional abuse while she was living in the Playboy Mansion. Watch below:
