EXCLUSIVE: From the dirt-poor daughter of Mexican mother who used her kids to steal to the plastic princess on Donald Sterling's arm: The rise of V. Stiviano and the disturbing racial secret behind her mysterious name changes

• Model Vanessa Stiviano, 31, at center of Donald Sterling race hate scandal after recording his rants
• Stiviano was brought up in San Antonio, Texas, in Section 8 housing, by a mother once convicted of using three of her kids to help her steal $113 from a supermarket
• Moved to California sometime before graduating school, and attended the same East LA high school as Sterling and his estranged wife 
  
• Stayed in LA to seek fame and fortune and believes to have had plastic surgery to improve her 'below average looks' 
  
• Linked to Jerry Buss, late Lakers owner, amid claims he also gave her a job
  
• Changed her name in 2010, for a very disturbing reason adding: 'I haven't yet been fully accepted' because of her race
• Despite claiming she had nothing to do with the leaking of the tapes, she posted messages on Instagram three weeks before scandal erupted, bragging about 'Skeletons in Closet' and 'It's all coming out!'

By RYAN PARRY IN SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

PUBLISHED: 14:02 EST, 30 April 2014 | UPDATED: 01:28 EST, 1 May 2014

Vanessa Stiviano portrays her life as that of a glamorous jet-setting model - a stunning mixed-race 'philanthropist' with the world at her feet.

Calling herself V. Stiviano, the woman behind the Donald Sterling race hate scandal seems to want for nothing.

The 31-year-old lives in an impressive $1.8m condo in an upscale, tree-lined avenue in Los Angeles, close to Beverly Hills.

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She owns a bright red Ferrari, two top of the line Bentleys, a sporty Range Rover and a designer wardrobe to match - all of it bought for her by the man she eventually brought down.

But a MailOnline investigation can today reveal the full story behind Stiviano that gives some insight into why she apparently burned her sugar daddy-sponsored life of luxury for the bigger prize of fame and notoriety - and just why she may have chosen racist Sterling as her springboard.

Stiviano turned her back on her dirt-poor upbringing in San Antonio, Texas, where she was raised by a jobless Mexican mother convicted of using her own children to steal from a supermarket - to seek her fame and fortune in Los Angeles. 

There she got herself noticed through modelling and has even been linked to Jerry Buss, the late owner of the LA Lakers and friend of Sterling.

 

We can also reveal how Stiviano suffered bad skin problems which knocked her self-confidence in her teens, turning to plastic surgery to transform her looks.

Most shockingly of all however, MailOnline has discovered why Stiviano, who was born Maria Perez, changed her name in 2010 to wipe out her past. 

MailOnline has seen the documents, but has chosen not to publish it due to its sensitive nature, but giving a reason for her name change, Stivano claimed in the court papers she hadn't 'yet been fully accepted because of my race'.

Stiviano's recordings, in which Sterling is heard telling her not to associate with black people, sparked wide-spread revulsion across America and resulted in the NBA handing Sterling, 81, a lifetime ban preventing him from attending any future NBA basketball games. 

 

 

 

 

 

He has also been slapped with a hefty $2.5million fine and his ownership of the Clippers – a franchise now estimated to be worth a staggering $430 million - now hangs in the balance.

Stiviano's lawyer insists that she didn't leak audio recordings of Sterling's vile racist rants. She said she felt 'bad' for him. 

But Stiviano, up until now a mysterious figure who has been wearing a bizarre visor over her face, certainly seems to be lapping up the attention.

Her cat-like face has appeared on hundreds of TV networks, in newspapers and on news websites around the world and at last count her followers on Instagram had jumped to more than 164,000.

Born Maria Vanessa Perez, Stiviano lived in a small bungalow in a prominent latino area of San Antonio where families live on the bread-line relying on government hand-outs to survive.

 

 

The property came under Section 8 housing - a rented property partly funded by the Government to support low income families.

Her mother, whose maiden name was Martha Perez, struggled to raise her brood and married a construction worker called Guillermo Beltran to bring food to the table.

It is believed that Stiviano's biological father was an African-American, but MailOnline has been unable to contact him.

In 2002, when Stiviano was 19, things went from bad to worse and Martha resorted to desperate measures to make ends meet.

A police report details how a Martha Beltran planned a daring theft of groceries at an upmarket H-E-B supermarket in San Antonio.

According to the report, a security guard spotted Martha, who was with three of her children at the time, leaving a shopping cart filled with $113.63 worth of groceries close to the rear door of the store.

 

 

She then filled a second cart with items which she paid for at the check out.

As Martha left the store she gave her children some money to go back in to buy some fruit and ordered them to pick up the unpaid groceries at the door on their way out - a cunning plot to use her children as a decoy.

She had even marked the cart by tying balloons to its side so as not to confuse her kids.

But the security guard rumbled the children and called the police who arrested Martha.

It was stated in the police report dated August 15, 2002, that Martha - seemingly angry that her kids got her caught - was overheard threatening to beat one of them for speaking to store workers.

Martha was later convicted of theft, given a $300 fine and put on probation.

It is not clear from court records, whether Stiviano, who would have been 17 at the time, was involved in the incident that day at all.

A sign on the door of the former family home in Texas still reads the family name: 'Beltran & Esparza family' below a Mexican Catholic moulding of the Virgin Mary in the form of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

 

 

 

 

 

But when MailOnline visited the home yesterday, a resident there said her family was renting the property and didn’t know of the Beltran family.

What is clear is that Stiviano’s upbringing was tough.

One former neighbor, who asked not to be named, said: 'I remember seeing the family coming and going, there was quite a few of them. The mom didn't work so they were always short of cash. The man of the house was into construction, he would come home all messed up. They weren't very friendly people.'

Stiviano seems to have moved to California, where much of her family lived, sometime before graduating high school, and it was revealed Wednesday that she, Sterling and Sterling's wife all attended the same East Los Angeles high school.

Roosevelt High School Principal Bruce Bivins discovered the coincidence on Tuesday, and located yearbook pictures of the three. 

Sterling graduated from the Boyle Heights' school under his birth name of Don Tokowitz in 1952, along with his future wife Rochelle, whose maiden name is Stein. 

The estranged couple were followed 48 years later by Stiviano, who graduated in 2001 and is pictured in the yearbook in her cap and gown as Maria Perez. 

Principal Bivins said that while he has never met Sterling, the Clippers owner has donated $5,000 each year for the past five years to one of the school's scholarship funds. 

'We are a little shocked and saddened by his comments,' Principal Bivins said 

 

 

 

 

But MailOnline has been told that Stiviano is rumored to have also known Jerry Buss, the owner of the LA Lakers and former associate of Donald Sterling - who she first met at the Super Bowl in 2010.

It is claimed Stiviano had a close friendship with Buss – a notorious ladies man - which lasted a number of years.

Buss, a divorced dad-of-six who died in February last year aged 80, was widely known as a playboy in his twilight years and had a string of pretty young girlfriends in tow. It was claimed that Buss gave her a role in his charity work, but the LA Lakers have denied that she was every directly or indirectly with the team.

But Sterling, who is thought to be worth around $1.9 billion, did Stiviano in charity roles.

In a 2011 charity luncheon ad, Stiviano was listed as a director of the Donald T. Sterling Charitable Foundation, with Sterling as chairman, according to the LA Times.

Intriguingly, the similarities don't end there. When Buss died he left a condo and a Bentley in his will for his then girlfriend Delia Cortiz - Sterling gave Stiviano a condo too and TWO Bentleys (plus a Ferrari and a Range Rover). Apparently, they were men of similar tastes in women and gifts.

In 2010, Maria Vanessa Perez abandoned her past all together. She petitioned Los Angeles Superior Court for a legal name change to V Stiviano.

She filed the official papers – seen by MailOnline - on August 5 citing her reason as a disturbing personal tragedy that affected her childhood and the rest of her life.

MailOnline has chosen not to publish the full details of the trauma so as to protect those involved.

But Stiviano told the court that the event had left her feeling ostracized from her community from birth.

'Haven't yet been fully accepted because of my race,' she wrote.

 

 

 

 

Stiviano represented herself in the action and was granted a fee waiver due to a lack of funds.

Her name change was granted on September 17, 2010, and so V Stiviano was created.

Her alter-ego's life is vigorously played out through her Instagram account on which she has posted hundreds of 'selfies'.

Many of Stiviano's snaps feature her posing in front of Clippers banners or wearing a skimpy bikini or tiny outfit.

She has even created a 'V. Stiviano' fashion line with hats and shirts emblazoned with her name.

Several photos show a string of hunky men wearing her designs.

Now free of her hardscrabble beginnings in Texas, Stiviano isn’t shy at expressing how well life has been going.

'One day I will look back at Instagram & say, "I've been there & I've done that." I do it all. Artist, Lover, Writer, Chef, Poet, Stylist, Philanthropist," her bio says.

Her posts reveal a life most could only dream of - scuba-diving in Miami’s South Beach, attending fashion shows in Paris and New York, posing at the Grammy Awards in LA and hanging off the arm of A-list sports stars.

When MailOnline approached Stiviano via the intercom at her LA apartment, she told us: 'I am not giving any interviews. I don’t call myself Vanessa any more. My name is V.'

Last month, Stiviano was served legal papers by Sterling’s wife. Rochelle Sterling filed a lawsuit accusing Stiviano of having an affair with her husband and targeting wealthy older men.

The suit claims that Sterling used the couple's money - without Rochelle's agreement - to buy Stiviano her fleet of cars, a $1.8m duplex and received about $250,000 in cash.

Stiviano has fought back through her lawyer, claiming that she wasn't Sterling's 'first rodeo' and that Rochelle knew about her promiscuous husband for years - even accusing her of being his 'enabler'.

 

 

 

But it remains to be proved, whether the leaking of the recordings are another front in her fight against Rochelle - one that has proven infinitely more damaging to the Sterling family.

She and her lawyer maintain she didn't give the tapes to TMZ and she's 'devastated' by what has happened. But her Instagram account paints a very different picture.

Around the time the legal papers were served by Rochelle's lawyers, Stiviano posted several Instagram messages apparently teasing her followers about the big news ahead.

In one, she posted a picture of herself looking through binoculars out to sea in a bikini. The caption read: 'It's all coming out!'

Two weeks ago, she posted a picture of a Tupac track playing on her Bentley's sound system called 'All Eyes on Me'. This could have been meaningless, had it not been for her then attaching the hashtags #wallstreetjournal #newsweekly #randomhouse #publishers #nytimes among many others.

Then she posted others reading: 'SKELETONS IN YOUR CLOSET'; 'ONCE THE BEAR IS UNLEASHED, THERE'S NO STOPPING HER...MAKING MODERN DAY HISTORY'

Most tellingly she posted: 'IT DOESN'T MATTER IF YOUR(sic) BROWN OR WHITE, AS LONG AS: YOUR NOT BLACK...'

Did Donald Sterling tell her that he was going to side with his wife and ask for his gifts back? Did this prompt Stiviano to consider going public? 

And was it just about the money? Was Sterling in fact used by the ambitious exhibitionist - last night she said one day she'll be the President of the United States - as a launchpad for introducing us to the weird world of mysterious 'V'?

• Do you know the mysterious V. Stiviano? If so, email tips@dailymail.co.uk
  

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2617020/EXCLUSIVE-From-dirt-poor-daughter-Mexican-mother-used-kids-steal-plastic-princess-Donald-Sterlings-arm-The-rise-V-Stiviano-disturbing-racial-secret-mysterious-changes.html#ixzz30S3kZqOe 
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