HOME / NEWS / CELEBRITY NEWS

'RHOM' star Julia Lemigova regrets being in 'closet' while dating Martina Navratilova

'I couldn’t imagine holding another woman’s hand on the street,' said Julia Lemigova

‘Real Housewives of Miami’ star Julia Lemigova discusses her connection with Martina Navratilova and how she regrets being in the closet when they initially started dating. In a statement obtained by Page Six, Lemigova stated, “We never talked about gay relationships in Russia. It was only when I left Moscow and moved to Paris that I discovered that there were all types of relationships and loves. Even though I had relationships with other women, it was in a private closed circle. I couldn’t imagine holding another woman’s hand on the street. I was very much in the closet all those years.” 

She admitted that she met Navratilova for the first time in a nightclub in Paris in 2000. Despite the fact that it was only a brief encounter, they bumped into one other at the French Open years later. Lemigova recounted, “We bumped into each other in the players’ restaurant. I literally bumped into her with a tray of food. She remembered me. And I asked her to have breakfast with me the next day. Then we had another breakfast the next day and then one more breakfast. And then she moved in.”

RELATED ARTICLES

How did Julia Lemigova and Martina Navratilova meet? Inside 'RHOM' star's romance 

Who is Julia Lemigova? 'RHOM' star's lover was killed and her baby died mysteriously

The 'RHOM' star admitted that she never openly acknowledged her love for Navratilova, regardless of the fact that she must have upset her and they were living together. Lemigova said to Page Six, “she’s a pioneer of LGBTQ liberation and being herself. When she tried to hold my hand, I would say, ‘Darling, we cannot do this. We’re in Paris. What if somebody sees us, the neighbors?’” 

Lemigova regretfully added, “I don’t even know how she stayed with me for so long. It’s only when I came to Miami that I was open. This town helped me come out of the closet. And then I was thinking, ‘oh my god, what a fool I was. How could I wait for so long?’” Navratilova proposed to Lemigova at the 2014 US Open, and the two married later that year in front of Brooke Shields, Chris Evert, Lynda Carter, and models Karolina Kurkova and Rachel Hunter. Lemigova's kids, Emma and Victoria, grew to see Navratilova as their mother, prompting her to become public with their connection, according to her.

She concluded, “I’m happy to share my life with Martina — how we live, our family, our kids, and our interaction with the animals on the farm. I have the amazing opportunity to show that love has no gender and love is love.” Social media was also quick to react as one person wrote, “I’m beginning to regret being born into this world,” while another user added, “@JLemigova please don’t feel regretful… it's the heteronormative society that should be ashamed💖”