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Julia Lemigova joined The Real Housewives of Miami  cast in season 4 and has made her mark in the reality series. Lemigova has been married to tennis superstar Martina Navratilova for eight years. The couple made Housewives history as the first same-sex couple featured on the show.

How did the tennis great meet the future housewife?

When Julia Lemigova met Martina Navratilova

Lemigova, who was a model at the time, saw the tennis star across a bar in Paris in 2000. “I looked around my shoulder, and I saw Martina, and I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ According to her, I gave her one of those James Bond looks,” she told the Everything Iconic with Danny Pellegrino podcast. 

“She came to talk to me and introduced herself. But unfortunately, that was the end of our moment. Something could have happened, but it didn’t,” the reality star explained on the RHOM Season 4 premiere. 

Years went by, and Lemigova went on to have her two daughters. 

“Exactly eight years later, on the day … deja vu, during the French Open, I bump into Martina, and I said, ‘How about a breakfast?'” Lemigova continued during the episode. “We had a breakfast the next day, and then the next day, and then the third day. And then she moved in.”

Julia Lemigova and Martina Navratilova’s relationship timeline

Julia Lemigova and Martina Navratilova standing together and smiling
Julia Lemigova and Martina Navratilova | ANGELA WEISS/Contributor

After their second meeting in 2008, Lemigova said she was nervous about coming out as a couple, but her young daughters gave her the courage when they stood up to their friends and said they had two moms. 

The tennis great proposed to the model at the 2014 US Open. 

“I have been waiting for the right time to ask Julia to marry me,” Navratilova told the crowd. “I thought this was the right place and the right time to pop the question, and thankfully, I got a yes.” Not a bad place to propose. 

The couple married on December 15, 2014. 

Their first foray into reality TV was on Married to a Celebrity: The Survival Guide in 2017, where they admitted their pet peeves about each other. 

Then Lemigova joined RHOM in 2021.

Martina Navratilova’s health struggles

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Navratilova, who had breast cancer in 2010, announced that she was facing a double cancer battle in January 2023. She was diagnosed with both throat and breast cancer. 

The athlete noticed an enlarged lymph node during November’s WTA Finals, which a biopsy revealed was stage one throat cancer.

During testing, a lump was also found on her breast, which was diagnosed as unrelated breast cancer. 

“That’s when I started crying on the table as she’s getting samples out of my boob, and I’m like, ‘Oh great, now I have two cancers at the same time,” she said on Piers Morgan Uncensored.

She recently announced that she is cancer-free. “I mean, as far as they know, I’m cancer-free … I definitely won’t be missing any of my check-ups. I will be very, very diligent about it, but the prognosis is excellent. But you never know,” she said to Morgan.

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