Muhammad Ali’s Ex-Wife Spills Intimate Details About Their Marriage
Muhammad Ali called himself the greatest — and many people would agree with him. He charmed the world with his never-before-seen style in and out of the boxing ring. Men wanted to be him, and women wanted to be with him. But now Khalilah Ali — the boxer’s second wife — has revealed what the champ was really like behind closed doors. And what she’s said isn’t always pretty.
Punch-drunk love
Khalilah had a front-row seat for the most famous and tumultuous period of Ali’s life and career. You see, the pair were married from 1967 to 1976. That spans the time from Ali’s arrest for dodging the draft through the “Fight of the Century,” the “Rumble in the Jungle,” and the “Thrilla in Manilla.” So Khalilah saw the very good — and the very bad.
Caught cold
Khalilah claims that she actually met Ali for the first time when she was ten years old. Ali was still known as Cassius Clay back then, and Khalilah was going by her given name of Belinda Boyd. But the young Khalilah apparently wasn’t blown away by the boxer — and she had some prophetic parting words for him.
Knockdown
“Brother, come back when you get a real name. Then we can talk,” Khalilah claimed she told Ali, according to a 2011 article by the Miami New Times. Ali did just that, of course. The boxer had already become Muhammad Ali by the time he married a 17-year-old Khalilah in 1967. But she wasn’t done influencing his life just yet.
Go the distance
Khalilah has even claimed that she was the one who turned Ali into the “people’s champ.” This was after Ali had been blacklisted for declining to go to Vietnam. And in private, the boxing star apparently hadn’t been as confident as his public persona suggested. “He was worried he was going to go to jail,” Khalilah told the Miami New Times.
