Tennis legend Martina Navratilova had a very public coming out last week with new fiancée, former Russian beauty queen Julia Lemigova. The once ultra-private pair flashed matching engagement rings and hit the dance floor together at a St Tropez party.
The inside word is that the couple are hoping their upcoming wedding will mark the end of a succession of tragedies and scandals that have dogged both women.
Julia, 36, who was crowned the last Miss USSR in 1991, lost her 5-month-old son Maximilien in mysterious circumstances in 2000. Although no-one was ever charged in relation to the death, which was attributed to internal injuries, her Bulgarian nanny suddenly disappeared after the tragedy.
Then in 2005, Julia’s former boyfriend, banker Edouard Stern, was found shot dead wearing a head-to-toe latex cat suit. It was later found that he had been killed by his mistress Cecile Brossard during a bondage session.
The tragic series of events took another bizarre turn when Julia — who had voiced her fears that her son had been murdered before the inquiry into his death was closed due to lack of evidence — claimed that Cecile had phoned her, offering to reveal “the truth about your son”.
While Martina hasn’t endured the tragedy that has plagued her fiancée, the 52-year-old star has long been unlucky in love. Displaying an early taste for beauty queens, she dated former Miss Texas Judy Nelson for seven years before the couple split in 1991 with a headline-making legal wrangle over palimony.
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