Pelé accumulated cases of loving infidelity and controversial phrases

During his 82 years of life, Edson Arantes do Nascimento, Pelé, accumulated titles, reverence, girlfriends, fame and fortune. But his story also includes unedifying episodes, controversies and gaffes.

His reluctance to acknowledge his daughter Sandra is one of them. Perhaps the best known. In 1963, aged 23, the then Santos Futebol Clube player had a quick relationship with Anísia Machado, and with her he had a daughter named Sandra.

Even after DNA tests (he contested the results and had to redo them), she managed, in court, the right to use her father’s last name. That was in 1996, ten years before Sandra died of cancer. It was veiled in Santos and, even though he was in São Paulo, Pelé did not attend.

In 1966, when he was 26, he married for the first time — to Rosemari de Reis Cholbicon, with whom he had three children. The relationship, however, came to an end in the mid-1980s.

Between 1981 and 1986, the former player dated Xuxa Meneghel. She was about to turn 18, and he was 41. In her book “Memoirs” (272 pages. Editora Globo), she says she has “contradictory feelings” when she thinks about the time of courtship. She also recalls being betrayed numerous times.

In the early 1990s, Pelé started dating gospel singer Assiria Seixas Lemos, who adopted his surname and became Assiria Nascimento. He married her in 1994 and had twins Celeste and Joshua. The marriage ended in 2008. In an interview with Quem magazine that year, Assiria hinted that the reason for the separation was the “King’s” infidelity.

In 2002, the former player assumed the paternity of Flávia Cristina Kurtz, at the time 34 years old, who was born in Porto Alegre (RS). She is the result of a relationship with the then journalism student, Lenita Kurtz.

Paternity was revealed that year by Hélio Viana, Pelé’s former partner, to Isto É Gente magazine. The former footballer met his daughter in 1994, but only decided to make the revelation in the early 2000s.

And finally, it was during a trip to New York in 2010 that he met Marcia Cibele Aoki. The wedding took place six years later, in 2016. Both were together until today.

Pelé was also famous for his controversial statements. In 2013 he stated that Brazilians should forget the protests that were being held in the country because of politics and had to think about the Brazilian football team. Modesty wasn’t one of his traits either. “Just as there has only been one Beethoven and one Michelangelo in history, there is only one Pelé”, he stated, convinced, in 1994, the year of his fourth world championship.

In 1996, he made another strong statement about not fighting for good conditions for Brazil’s players. “I was a coward when I played. I was only concerned with the evolution of my career.”

Five years later, in 2001, the Sheet revealed that, in 1995, Pelé’s company had received US$ 700,000 (R$ 3.7 million in current exchange rates) to organize a charity event in favor of the Argentine section of Unicef. The event ended up not being held and the money was never transferred to the assistance fund.

In 2004, the former athlete blamed managers for the situation of football clubs and accused them of theft. “The guys steal the clubs, end up with the money and come to blame the Pelé Law.”