“I broke a lot of hearts” admits Chris Evert over her love-split to wed Greg
TENNIS star Chris Evert has opened up for the first time about her failed marriage to golfer Greg Norman, confessing: “I broke a lot of hearts.”
In a candid interview, she admits she should never have left ex-husband Andy Mill for Norman – and urges others to work hard at their marriages before walking away. Evert, 56, stunned the sporting world in 2006 when she left downhill skiing star Andy Mill for Norman, who was also married and a friend of Mill.
“I was with Andy for 18 years,” the mother of three tells the latest issue of US Elle. “It was a good, solid marriage. When we were growing apart, I should have nailed it right then and there, and communicated, but I didn’t.
“And when someone came into my life, I just left. I broke a lot of hearts. I broke Andy’s heart and broke my kids’ hearts. And I brought that into my next marriage, those issues that weren’t resolved.”
She says: “Marriage is up and down. If you sense you’re drifting apart, you’ve got to confront the issue. You can’t wait until five years later, because then it might be too late.”
Six-times US Open winner Evert was married to Norman, 56, for 18 months after she left Mill, but they divorced in December 2009. She says the seeds of that break-up were sewn during the collapse of her marriage to Mill under the strain of raising three children along with their frequent, separate travel commitments.
Friends suggested she and Mill see a marriage counsellor but Evert refused: “I’d go, ‘God, can’t you figure out your own problems?’”
By the time they did seek professional help it was too late. She and Norman had already started what she insists was a platonic affair.
Evert and Norman’s union seemed doomed from the start. Evert says: “My priority was my kids. His priority was to build his business and travel.”
She says after her marriage to Norman failed she thought about the hurt and the pain she had caused Mill, whom she described as “my husband and best friend and soulmate”.
“My conscience and my guilt and my grief kicked in,” she said. “I was a little bit of a mess then.”
Evert’s first marriage, to British tennis star John Lloyd in 1979 ended after her affair with singer Adam Faith.
