When soccer legend Pele handed away final week following a hard-fought battle with colon most cancers, followers all over the world mourned the person recognized merely as “O Rei” – the King.
His outrageous abilities on the pitch, rags-to-riches life story, and file of three World Cup titles with Brazil imply Edson Arantes do Nascimento will all the time have a particular place in hundreds of thousands of individuals’s hearts.
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But for Brazilian-born movie star photographer and author Selma Fonseca, 56, the ache of Pelé’s demise aged 82 was rather more private than that, The Sun reviews.
Selma noticed one other aspect to Pele after they dated within the Nineties – the lothario who went on to marry 3 times and earn a status for breaking girls’s hearts.
Telling her story for the primary time ever in an unique interview with The U.S. Sun, she regarded again on the rollercoaster romance stuffed with loopy highs and desperately bitter lows she went via with him.
It all started when she was simply 23, dwelling in New York as an unlawful immigrant, broken-hearted from a break-up, and needing to seek out someplace new to dwell.
“My best friend was a Brazilian girl who worked as Pele’s secretary and her father was his business partner at the Cosmos soccer team in the US,” she defined.
“She was also seeking accommodation because she didn’t like the long commute she had to make from the suburbs every day.
“So she asked Pele if we could both stay at his apartment in Manhattan which was empty since he lived mostly in Brazil and travelled a lot.
“He agreed and it was great, he was kind enough not to charge rent and we were living in a luxurious apartment building next to Bloomingdales.”
“Of course, there were some rules. We could use the entire apartment but should never enter his bedroom – a rule which would later prove interesting.
“We lived there for four months and I remember one time I was watching television in the living room, and above the sofa, there was an original Andy Warhol portrait painting of Pele with a ball on his head.
“It filled the entire wall and must have been worth millions of dollars.
“I always had a feeling that the painting was watching me, like Pele himself was in the room with me.”
When the soccer icon, then 49, introduced he could be returning to New York and wanted his residence again, Selma discovered a modest studio to lease on town’s East Side and moved out.
But the day Pele bought again, Selma was at his workplace visiting her buddy.
“I was standing by her desk when he came out and asked her to book him a dentist appointment,” Selma stated.
“As he looked at me with those piercing eyes, I attempted to play it cool but inside I was full of nerves.
“Pele was considered a living god for us Brazilians so I was starstruck.
“After being introduced, I found him to be very charismatic and charming, and he was certainly not shy about being flirtatious. I felt we immediately had a connection.
“Despite his status, he was not pretentious at all and made me feel very comfortable by telling jokes.”
Over the subsequent week Selma would swing by Pele’s workplace to see her buddy however with every passing day, she seen he was flirting together with her increasingly.
Then out of the blue Pele invited her to affix him and a small group of buddies for his party at a restaurant within the metropolis.
Setting the scene, she defined: “He sat at the head of the table and asked me to sit close to him.
“I could feel the sexual tension building between us just from the way he caressed my hand or gave me a kiss on the cheek.”
Just a few weeks later, Pele invited Selma to affix him for dinner once more, this time on the movie star sizzling spot, Mr. Chow.
When she arrived for the date, she was stunned to seek out he had introduced his daughter Kely and son, Edinho.
While they loved themselves collectively, Selma was once more left surprised when the late actor and comedian genius Robin Williams approached the desk and launched himself to Pele.
She stated: “Pele introduced me to Robin saying ‘This is my girlfriend Selma’.
“It caught me completely off guard, and for a moment I thought he was joking.
“Then I remembered all the sweet things he had been telling me when we were together, the way he had been drawing me in little by little, and I realised it was genuine.
“He really wanted me to be his girlfriend.”
The pair went on to Regine’s nightclub on Park Avenue collectively, the place they sipped champagne and Pelé confirmed off his legendary footwork on the dance ground.
With the evening winding down, they had been picked up by Pele’s chauffeur and brought again to his residence.
Selma stated: “As he led the way through the lobby, I noticed the guard at the front desk recognised me from the months I had lived there and gave me a smirk.
“When we got up to the apartment he took me straight to his previously forbidden bedroom and I finally got to see what was inside.
“A waterbed was in the middle on a raised platform and I had to go up four steps to reach it.
“We had sex for hours, I don’t even remember falling asleep. It felt like a dream.”
The following day Pele stunned Selma by visiting her studio with flowers, a bottle of whiskey, and a bottle of wine, and instructed her he wished her to journey the world with him.
But since she was dwelling within the United States illegally, it will have meant giving up on every little thing she had constructed and she or he felt that they had been in very totally different locations of their lives.
Selma says she was additionally involved in regards to the racial prejudices that she and Pele confronted.
Things then took a fair heavier twist when, six months into the connection, Selma discovered she was pregnant however tragically misplaced the infant in a miscarriage.
“There were a lot of negative reactions because he was black, some people were very racist about it,” she instructed The U.S. Sun.
“That’s why I didn’t tell anyone, not even my family when I got pregnant. I’ve never spoken about it until now, I’ve never told my family.
“Now he is not here I feel like I can finally tell the truth.
“When I told Pele I was pregnant he was really happy, super excited, and making plans.
“He wanted to get married and for me to go with him to Europe and Brazil but I couldn’t get out of the country because I was here illegally and I didn’t want to move back to Brazil.
“I didn’t really want to get married because he was much older than me and because of the racism thing, that makes you think about things too.
“When I lost the baby he was away and he said we would figure it out when he got back but I saw it as a sign God was sending me not to marry him.
“A year later he married his second wife, so clearly he wanted to get married.”
After they cut up, Selma stayed in contact with Pele and even noticed him once more when she was lastly in a position to journey to Brazil after marrying an American and obtained a inexperienced card.
She says she tried to go to him in recent times however was blocked by his third spouse Marcia Aoki, who she says claimed he was too ailing to obtain guests.
“I was devastated when I found out he was gone but he had such a beautiful life,” she defined.
“He was a really kind man who had time for anyone who asked him for a picture or an autograph.
“He told me he never forgot where he came from.
“He grew up as poor as you can imagine but never forgot to be generous and nice.”
For her half, Selma went on to grow to be a society photographer, taking footage of movie star events in New York, Hollywood, on the Cote d’Azur, and the Caribbean.
In January she shall be publishing a espresso desk e book titled Partying With Selma: Hollywood’s Brightest Night together with her footage of celebs on the Vanity Fair Oscars celebration over time.
This article initially appeared on The Sun and was reproduced with permission.
Originally printed as Former love spills on her steamy fling with soccer megastar Pele
