A former girlfriend of Muhammad Ali has made a sick bid to cash in on
his death by offering for sale tapes she claims show him at sex
parties.
Barbara Mensah, who alleges her daughter Kiiursti is the
lovechild of the three-times world heavyweight champion, wants a
six-figure sum for the footage.
Just two days after The Greatest
was buried at a funeral attended by world leaders and celebrities,
grasping Barbara told the Sunday People : “I know the value of the
footage.
“No one has anything like this. I’d like to get as much as I can for it.”
The scheming mum said she is looking for more than $100,000 – about £70,000.
Barbara, 70, has already made inquiries to get the old cine film transferred on to CD to make her sordid deal easier to clinch.
She claimed the footage was shot at “gumbo parties” arranged after his fights.
She said: “There would be Ali and a few of his guys and then about a dozen or more girls.
“All of them were stunning. Muhammad couldn’t keep away from a pretty girl whether he was married or not.
“The tapes show them having sex.
“They used to call them gumbo parties – it was a mix of everything.”
Gumbo is a traditional Louisiana stew.
Barbara claims the tapes were entrusted to her by one of Ali’s closest confidants.
Speaking
about her relationship with the legendary boxer, she said: “Ali always
referred to me as his wife with great respect and not as a hidden
affair.”
Barbara also claims to have written a “blockbuster” book about her life with Ali which eight publishers are competing for.
Kiiursti,
35, who looks remarkably like the ex-world heavyweight champ, is said
to be the result of a 20-year affair Barbara had with Ali in his heyday.
She claims a 1988 paternity test proves Kiiursti is his child, although Ali is not named on her birth certificate.
Barbara
was in Louisville, Kentucky, for a Muslim prayer service for Ali on
Thursday the day before his funeral attended by over 100,000 mourners.
She
stood just yards from Ali’s family, at one point coming within a few
feet of Ali’s widow Lonnie, 59, who she blames for cutting her out of
his life.
Showing pictures of Ali’s coffin on Facebook, Barbara
wrote: “It really, really hurts and only time will ease the pain R.I.P
until we meet again.
“I’m so glad I came to say goodbye to my
love you were always there for me I never would have miss your home
going for the world.”
And taking a swipe at the boxer’s widow,
she added: : “Yes she tried to keep me from you in life and in death but
here I am at the private funeral. R.I.P. my love.”
Earlier
Barbara had posted a picture of blonde girl in lingerie posing with two
men in pyjamas and claimed it was taken at a gumbo party.
Ali,
74, who had suffered the nervous wasting disease Parkinson’s for at
least 32 years, died nine days ago from sceptic shock after being rushed
to hospital in Phoenix, Arizona, with breathing problems.
Barbara
claims Lonnie blocked her and her daughter out of Ali’s life after he
became too ill from the degenerative disorder to venture out on his own.
She
said Ali had regularly visited toddler Kiiursti in Houston until she
was five but after that the visits became less frequent.
By the age of 13 all contact had stopped and the only other time they saw him was at an autograph signing in Dallas.
Kiiursti previously said: “My mom isn’t bitter, not at all.
“She knows it’s not his fault. When he was able to do things, it was OK. Then he got sick. That was the end for me.”
Barbara was a teenage beauty when newly crowned world champ Ali met her on a visit to Houston.
In 1967 Ali changed his legal residence to the Texas city.
And
it was there in April that year that he made worldwide headlines when
he refused to be conscripted into the US Army for the war in Vietnam.
America’s prestigious Life magazine did a special edition on Ali’s defiance and published a photo of him with Barbara.
The
four-times-married boxer officially had nine children and Kiiursti
claims she has met Laila Ali, 38, who became a boxer herself.
Kiiursti
says she also speaks to Ali’s only biological son Muhammad Ali Jr who
was estranged from his father for more than two years before his death
and also blames widow Lonnie for cutting him out.
Kiiursti has denied to Ali’s relatives that she and her mother want a slice of the superstar’s money.
She said: “The rest said I just want money. I said, ‘Seriously, you just don’t know what’s going on, do you.’”
When
news of Ali being rushed to hospital broke Kiiursti wrote on Facebook:
“I will be there very soon daddy just hold on...your baby girl is on the
way!!”
But when he died next day she was still in Texas.
Sources
claim Ali’s will could become the subject of a legal wrangle among his
family including Muhammad Ali Jr, who lives in poverty in Chicago’s
crime-plagued South Side.
The bitter 44-year-old claimed the
champion had seen his two granddaughters only once and that he was
having to raise them in a two-bedroom flat, unable to pay electricity
bills and accepting charity donations of food.
As well as the
family battle rumours have already surfaced Ali’s estate maybe
subjected to claims for a share of his £55million fortune by people
claiming to be his children.
Khalilah Camacho-Ali, the champ’s second wife, has insisted her former husband has several children who remain unknown.
“They’re going to come out of the woodwork like roaches,” she said.
“I had to protect Ali from lots of paternity suits.
“I went through a lot with that man – he had a real dark side.
“Other cheats didn’t have nothing on Muhammad Ali.”
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