Photo: PATRICK KOVARIK/AFP/Getty Images
After the death of Edson Arantes do Nascimento, better known as Pelé. Hundreds of stories have resurfaced about the Brazilian legend. For a long time, ‘O Rei’ maintained a sports rivalry with Diego Armando Maradona that transcended off the pitch. Several years ago, the 10 Albiceleste publicly aired an alleged homosexual relationship between the three-time World Champion.
It was in a television interview in 1998, one of the first times that Maradona revealed that Pelé had lost his virginity to a man. Consulted about some statements by ‘O Rei’ where he stated that ‘El Pelusa’ had to overcome his addiction to drugs, the Argentine star got angry and dropped the bomb.
“He says that I have to recover from drugs and that… he debuted with a kid, the black one. Yes, he debuted with a kid. It’s a mask.”
However, Maradona’s statements were not entirely wrong, since in 1980 Pelé fell in love with a young underage model. Maria da Graça Xuxa Meneghel began a five-year romance with the Brazilian star, with the prior approval of her parents.
This opened the doors to stardom for him and he received an offer to host a children’s show. However, this possibility could be cut short due to Xuxa’s nude poses for Playboy. When Pelé found out about this situation, he made an appearance at the magazine’s headquarters and asked for the removal of the photographs.
In exchange, he had to do an interview. In the extensive dialogue, Pelé would have confessed that her sexual debut was with a man. “Until I was 15, 16 years old I had some homosexual relationships. My initiation was with one that the entire team ate ”, would have been Pelé’s revelation.
Maradona is right: Pelé made his debut with a kid.
Pelé himself acknowledged this in the Brazilian edition of Playboy in August 1980: “Until I was 15, 16 years old I had some homosexual relationships. My initiation was with one that the entire team ate.” pic.twitter.com/5z80prU0ol
— David Mosquera (@renaldinhos) October 23, 2019
After Maradona aired this story that once again gained repercussion, years later Pelé himself affirmed that his words were taken out of context and denied the fact with a controversial response branded as homophobic.
“In Baurú there was a mari*** and the entire campus had had sex with him, but not me. That was misconstrued by Playboy magazine, in an interview in 1981.”, although later he qualified: “I have no problem with that and if I had done it, I would have said it; so many crazy things are done when one is young…”.
It may interest you:
·Remember the controversial relationship between Pelé and Xuxa; she was 17 and he was 40
ESPN journalist confessed that the José Ramón Fernández ball autographed by Pelé is false
A video on social networks shows that Pelé was the first to make the great plays of Messi, Cruyff, Zidane and Cristiano Ronaldo
**