A ho gotta promote her brand.
The sentiment was posted in March 2009 to a forum on the gossip Web site LipstickAlley.com, a popular destination for NBA wives, ex-wives and the adulterous athlete's best not-so-secret friend, the ubiquitous jumpoff girl.
Sakara Ross maintains her own Web site...
...showing herself off to her best advantage.
The alleged "ho" referred to in the aforementioned comment was Houston's own Sakara Ross, an aspiring model, actress and track star. According to her résumé, the University of Houston student has also appeared among the obligatory gaggles of gyrating T&A ornaments populating videos for rappers like Lil Wayne, David Banner, Bubba Sparxx and others. In 2008, a story about her affair with L.A. Clippers baller Ricky Davis blew up Lipstick Alley as well as other gossip sites. Davis had a girlfriend, Vanessa Ramirez, who is now his wife, but that apparently didn't stop Ross from going full-court press, and, on top of it, using his credit card to buy a $950 Herve Leger dress. Red.
When a jumpoff girl is exposed or somehow oversteps the bounds of tolerable groupie behavior, the women — and they're nearly all women — on Lipstick Alley become like sharks at the first whiff of blood, only meaner.
Before long, Ross's brief indiscretion snowballed into a tale of career whoredom spun by the Alley jackals.
Bish done ran through the whole NBA.
Her coochie is a city hot spot.
You've upped your ho-dometer. Your ho status is now at a[n] 8 out of 20.
Suddenly, Ross was accused of sleeping with other basketball players; of contracting chlamydia and/or herpes; of having an abortion; and, perhaps most egregious of all, wearing low-rent Gucci boots.
When Ross found out about the posts, she tried contacting Lipstick Alley's administrator, known on the site as "Condi." She tried contacting the administrator through the site's domain name registrant and the site's host. Her attorney ultimately sent cease and desist letters through these channels, but there was no response. In April 2009, Ross filed a defamation of character suit against the still-unknown "Condi" and a number of anonymous members of the site.
According to the suit, the malicious and systematic attacks on Ross's character damaged her business opportunities and disrupted her studies. Moreover, according to the suit, Ross's "relationship(s) with family members and members of the opposite sex have suffered because of the extensive allegations about her sexual behavior." And apparently, being continuously described as a chickenhead who values "the puss for the price of an LV bag" leads to acute dermatological and digestive maladies in certain individuals; Ross claimed to suffer insomnia, bouts of acne, upset stomach and loss of appetite from all the chatter.
Unfortunately for Ross, there can't be a trial without a served defendant. As long as Condi and the gossipmongers are anonymous, they're safe.
But in December 2009, Harris County District Court Judge Michael Gomez received a revelatory dispatch from the most unexpected of parties: the wife of the man Ross was dragged through the mud for allegedly boning. Vanessa Ramirez was Ricky Davis's girlfriend at the time, but now she was filing a damning amicus curiae brief as Mrs. Ricky Davis — a wronged woman who was nonetheless standing by her man and pointing an accusatory finger at the beguiling succubus who soiled the fragile ecosystem of jumpoff etiquette.
According to Vanessa Davis's letter, Sakara Ross, a woman who constantly tweets about how much she loves her dad and her church, may not be as innocent as her suit claims. In fact, Ross may have provided the very ammunition being used against her by posting candid messages and photos on her blog, Twitter page and MySpace (yes, MySpace) account. Like a mash-up of VH1's Basketball Wives and a Russ Meyer sexploitation epic, the letter offers an intimate glimpse into the small, combative world of athletes' wives and jumpoff girls. Enter at your own risk.
_____________________
Ross is a natural self-promoter.
According to her Web site, www.sakararossonline.com, theNacogdoches native has "worked with the industry's best — providing classic southern beauty and a confident swag that helped videos reach the top of charts and magazines disappear from newsstands. Now it's time for 24-year-old Sakara Ross to take center stage and shine on her own....she always exhibited special qualities, winning beauty and undeniable talent. Track-and-field meets, beauty pageants and talent shows filled her childhood with plenty of memories and [fueled] her future fame." (Ross declined to be interviewed for this story.)
Ross is nothing if not dedicated: For a 2007 King magazine photo shoot, she posed on a Brooklyn rooftop in below-30 weather wearing nothing but a G-string and heels.
But it appears indiscretion has added a dose of infamy to her pseudo-fame: In 2008, she met Ricky Davis, a guard/forward for the L.A. Clippers. By that time, the 12-year NBA veteran had bounced around to a number of teams, including the Boston Celtics, Miami Heat, Charlotte Hornets and Minnesota Timberwolves. While playing for the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2003, he earned the nickname "Wrong-Rim Ricky" when, in the final seconds of a winning game against the Utah Jazz, he took an inbounds pass and astonished everyone in the arena by deliberately bricking the ball off his own team's rim in an attempt to get his tenth rebound of the game and secure a triple-double. Unfortunately for Davis, the NBA frowned on such behavior, and he was fined for committing what is technically listed by the association as the "Being a Total Dick Violation."
