Sarah Palin's One-night Stand with Miami Heat Basketball Star

Reuters Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin speaks at a Tea Party Express rally on September 5, 2011 at Veterans Memorial Park in Manchester, New Hampshire. 

Sarah Palin snorted cocaine off a 55 gallon oil drum while snowmobiling with friends and had illicit affairs with a top NBA star and one of her husband's business partners, a new book sensationally claims.

In revelations which could strike a devastating blow to the controversial politician's hopes of joining the 2012 presidential race, Mrs Palin is said to have taken the class A drug with her husband, while smoking marijuana at college in secret liaisons with one of her professors.

Joe McGinniss's book The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin, which is due to be published on September 20, also alleges that the former governor of Alaska is far from the traditional family woman she claims to be. Mrs Palin, 47, had a one-night stand with Miami Heat basketball star Glen Rice less than a year before she eloped with her husband, the book claims.

She is said to have met the 6ft 8ins player in 1987 when he was playing in a college basketball tournament in Alaska and she worked as a sports reporter for KTUU television.

It is also claimed that she had a six-month affair with Brad Hanson, who ran a snowmobile dealership with her husband Todd - a betrayal which led to Todd dissolving their business.

In a bid to expose Mrs Palin's skeletons, Mr McGinness has studied the former vice presidential candidate for three years and last year even moved in to a home next door in Wasilla, Alaska, to dig some more.

The author writes that after college Mrs Palin developed a 'fetish' for black men. She allegedly had a tryst with basketball star Glen Rice in her younger sister Molly's University of Alaska dorm room, while she was dating Todd and just nine months before the couple were married.

Mrs Palin got pregnant with Todd and they eloped in August 1988. Their son Track, the oldest of five, was born eight months later in April 1989.

A friend said Mrs Palin spent the night with the basketball star but could not confirm whether they had sex, according to the National Enquirer. 'I remember Sarah feeling pretty good that she'd been with a black basketball star,' a source told the magazine.

The athlete is said to have confirmed the night of passion in Mr McGinniss's book. Mr Rice went on to have a huge career playing basketball in the NBA and was a three-timer All-Star.

The book goes on to claim that while married Mrs Palin also had an affair with one of her husband's business partners. Todd is alleged to have ended all dealings with Brad Hanson after he found out about the secret six-month relationship in 1996.

Both Mrs Palin and Mr Hanson have denied the allegations. Perhaps most damaging of all could be the suggestion that the supposed traditional all American mother has taken drugs.

Mr McGinness writes that while Mrs Palin attended Mat-Su College she took marijuana with a professor who was also the father of one of her female friends.

Before she was elected governor she is also said to have snorted cocaine with her husband off an overturned oil drum while snowmobiling with friends. Todd, who was arrested for driving drunk in 1986 used cocaine a lot and was 'on the end of a straw plenty,' according to a long-term associate quoted in the book.

The explosive book goes on to quote those who knew the family growing up, claiming Mrs Palin was a 'bad mum' who would lock herself in her room for hours on end asking not to be disturbed while her children cooked themselves dinner. Sarah Palin was plucked from obscurity to be the Republican vice presidential candidate in 2008.

The 'pitbull in lipstick' sparked a media storm after accepting the nomination, despite questions over her experience. But she wowed the U.S. after a barn-storming speech in September 2008 in which she attacked critics for calling her 'small town'.

A former mayor of Wasilla before she became governor of Alaska, Palin stepped down after the Republican defeat in the presidential election. The mother-of-five has remained tight-lipped on whether she would stand next year, but said she would likely make an announcement at the end of this month.

She has been overshadowed in recent months by Tea Party candidates including Michelle Bachmann. The Republican, who has now associated herself with the Tea Party movement in the U.S., has been dogged by scandal since being selected as Senator John McCain's running mate in 2007.

There have also been frequent rumours that she is set to divorce her husband Todd, which have always been denied. And she has faced accusations by the father of her daughter's child, Levi Johnston, that she wanted to keep Bristol's pregnancy a secret and adopt the child herself.

Palin has yet to declare whether she intends to run for election in next year's presidential race. Joe McGinniss, 68, has written several political books including works on former president Richard Nixon and on Alaska.

But his work on the state sparked vitriol from Palin after he refuted her claims to have secured the construction of a $40billion natural gas pipeline. The antagonism heightened after he took up the offer of renting a small house next door to Sarah Palin's in Wasilla in summer 2010.

It saw Palin write several posts on her Facebook account and articles in the right-wing press scathing Mr McGinniss's approach to writing the book. Mr McGinniss has since moved away from Wasilla after completing his book.

[Source : daily mail]