Former American tennis star Martina Navratilova is a pioneer of LGBTQ rights. Back in her playing days, the American had to go through a lot because of it. There were various restrictions and hate for the LGBTQ community. Further, the 18-time Grand Slam champion also believes that it might have affected her popularity. However, Navratilova had little effect on what others thought about her.

In the year 2000, she met the love of her life, Julia Lemigova. While Navratilova had no problem expressing her love in public, the former miss USSR was still not comfortable about it. Here’s what she recalled about the initial phase of their relationship.

Julia Lemigova hesitated to accept her relationship with Navratilova publically

The former Miss USSR and Navratilova first met in Paris. Later, they bumped into each other after 8 years and slowly formed a bond. While Navratilova is proud of her sexual orientation, Lemigova, being from Russia, was a little uncomfortable with publically expressing her love. Here’s what she recalled.

“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?” she said.

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However, she felt better and more open after shifting to Miami. “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?” she added. Julia and Martina tied the knot after a long relationship in 2015.

When Martina Navratilova broke a promise that she made to Julia

Before marriage in her vows, Navratilova agreed to the condition from Lemigova that she will no longer use social media.

It is something that irritates the Russian. While Navratilova agreed to it initially, she could not resist keeping herself from getting back to Twitter.

Watch this story:  ‘Seems to Get Injured a Lot’ – Martina Navratilova Once Used Serena Williams’ Example to Talk About the ‘Fragmented’ Nature of Women’s Tennis.

As we can see, Navratilova is quite active and very vocal on the microblogging website. Although, it is understandable that as a part of her job as a tennis analyst, she needs to do it. However, her wife definitely wasn’t happy about it when the couple discussed it in an interview.