BILLIE JEAN’S STORY OFF COURT
SHE knew exactly what was expected of her when she became Billie Jean King’s lover: stay in the background and don’t attract too much attention.
It was the early ’70s and Marilyn Barnett knew only too well that the world wasn’t ready for one of its greatest female sporting stars to admit that she preferred women to men.
So Billie Jean told her girlfriend she had to do everything she could to keep their relationship a secret.
By employing Marilyn as her “secretary and road manager”, they were able to travel the world together, sharing hotel rooms while on the circuit without raising too much suspicion.
But it wasn’t long before Marilyn started resenting her backroom role so she made herself conspicuous whenever the TV cameras were on Billie Jean at tournaments and news conferences.
When she interrupted an important interview to try to feed the tennis champ an avocado, there seemed little doubt that something was up – as Billie Jean would later discover to her cost.
That surreptitious affair was so different to how the American legend, who won 20 Wimbledon singles and doubles titles between 1961 and 1979, had imagined her life.
She’d vowed to herself to be the conventional “good wife”’ when she married her teenage sweetheart, Larry King, in 1965, losing her virginity only on their wedding night.
That promise lasted just three years. After realising she couldn’t deny her sexuality, at least in private, she began living a
