Boris Becker has attempted to set the story straight on suggestions he cheated on his ex-wife while she was giving birth to their child.
Tennis icon Becker admitted to infidelity in regard to his first wife, Barbara Feltus, which eventually led to the couple’s divorce before he married Sharlely Kerssenberg and then current wife Lilian de Carvalho Monteiro.
A number of reports suggested the incident happened while Barbara was in the midst of giving birth to the couple’s son, Elias, in a London bar. It also led to the birth of Becker’s youngest son, Amadeus.
He has looked to clarify events, though. Speaking on The Louis Theroux Podcast, the tennis great detailed how he and Barbara moved forward as parents – and how the divorce played out.
‘There were no contractions,’ Becker said of when he cheated on Barbara. ‘She was in hospital, but there was no contractions. No.
‘Fast forward, we settled in a divorce. I cheated on her, no doubt about that. We managed to have a relationship that’s built on respect. She’s a wonderful mother to my two oldest boys. She actually moved to Milan this year as well.
‘So we moved on from that. There were a couple of scenes after our divorce. Again, it’s so long ago. I have to really think hard about what happened that weren’t so nice from her.
‘Without getting into too much detail, she had the power because I was the bad guy. She got a nice cheque out of it. She got a nice monthly support out of it. And she realised that nobody’s perfect.
‘I like to call myself a good father. I really looked after my two oldest, even though they weren’t living in Europe at the time, and they moved to Miami. So 25 years later, we really consider each other a close knit family, regardless of what happened.’
Becker covered a number of topics on the podcast, including details of his recent stint in prison after he hid assets and loans to avoid paying debts. He also spoke on former rapper Diddy, having attended some of his parties.
The producer is serving a four-year sentence for transportation for prostitution, after a jury convicted him in July of flying his girlfriends and male sex workers around the country to engage in drug-fuelled sex parties.
Becker was quizzed on his relationship with the disgraced star, and revealed he wasn’t surprised when the allegations came to light.
‘I’ve met him. I spent a lot of time in Miami,’ Becker said. ‘If you know Diddy, if you live in Miami, if you are invited on the weekends, to parties, you have a choice of saying yes and you have a choice of saying no.
‘Nobody really talked in detail about what happened, they went for hours. And you put your two cents together… The parties were parties. But even the parties, they took sometimes a day or two.
‘When you talk to someone on a Saturday afternoon and you talk to them again on the Tuesday and they say damn, I just got out of it… of course nobody ever says what they’ve done in those 48 hours. But you think there was naturally an espresso Red Bull is strong enough to make you survive the two nights? I’ve never been a guy of going to a long party because, you know, what’s the point?’
On the back of his prison ordeal, the German insisted he is a new man. He was deported to Germany upon being released, having served eight months of a 30-month sentence.
Now, he lives in Milan, Italy, with his wife Lilian and their newborn daughter, Zoe Vittoria, who was born in November.
‘It’s easy in hindsight to say I’m thankful for it now because it just stopped the old life and I got a chance for a new life,’ Becker said. ‘At the time it was living hell. And when I went in there, I didn’t know I was going to leave after eight months and five days or 231 days. Because when I went in there, I thought I had to be there for at least 15 months. And then there’s maybe a house arrest.
‘So all of this happened while I was inside. I came out earlier than I expected. The deportation to Germany when I was there wasn’t in the cards, because I was trying to continue my life in the UK. But I would’ve had to stay longer in prison, which I didn’t want to do.
‘The consequences of the deportation is that I can’t go back to the UK at the moment, (but) I’m working with the authorities. Hopefully it’ll happen soon. I’ve been living in freedom for the last almost three years. So I take that.’
The Louis Theroux Podcast is available wherever you get your podcasts, and to watch exclusively on Spotify
