Amor tells all
2002-02-06 08:01
Pieter van Zyl and Barnie Louw
Cape Town - "Who knows, he could be my (future) husband. That's just too bad for the
other girls who like him," remarked South Africa's Lotto girl, Amor Vittone,
on Tuesday in a frank interview over her feelings for recently divorced
Springbok scrumhalf Joost van der Westhuizen.
"Give us some latitude," she implored.
Word has been out since divorce
proceedings between Joost and his former wife Marlene started that Amor was
somewhere in the picture.
Van der Westhuizen on Tuesday was slightly more circumspect: "We are just good friends."
He claims he and Vittone only started phoning one another following the first reports over their alleged relationship. "That's how we
became friends and now we are good friends. If we are meant to be together,
so be it."
Van der Westhuizen stressed that Vittone, or their alleged relationship, had no
bearing on his divorce. "I'm sick and tired of speculations that Amor had a
hand in the break-up of my marriage."
"The fact is that the marriage between my wife and I did not work out - I was away
from home for much of the time and things just happened ... Amor, or our
alleged relationship, definitely never played a role."
'I don't even know what Marlene looks like'
Vittone agrees. "I don't even know what Marlene looks like. I have only seen pictures of her in newspapers. I don't
want to cause people grief. That's not what I'm like."
On Tuesday morning she was in tears over fresh rumours in the media of an affair between
her and Joost.
She believes she had been made into the scapegoat for the break-up of Van der
Westhuizen's marriage. Vittone was adamant that they only started dating
after the divorce - by the middle of last month.
Vittone declined to speculate over reasons for Joost and Marlene's divorce.
"Why don't people ask them? Don't try and find reasons from me."
Van der Westhuizen said he phoned Vittone about three weeks ago and made a date for coffee. I'm a
divorced man and if I want to date her, then I'm allowed to do so," Van der
Westhuizen said.
Vittone said she and Van der Westhuizen had their first "good chat" at a
rugby dinner toward the end of October last year. "I know many rugby
players," she said, explaining her presence at the dinner.
"Congratulations on what you are doing. I'm proud of you," Van der
Westhuizen told her at the dinner. In the days following the dinner Van der
Westhuizen was abroad and she had a very full programme. "How could it have been possible for us to see one another during this time," Vittone said.
On Tuesday she disclosed that she had liked Van der Westhuizen for some
time. "When I saw him at the dinner, I thought to myself: 'Wow, you look hot,' but I realised he was a married man." He did however, tell her he was in the process of divorcing and that he was going through a difficult patch.
"Joost doesn't find it easy to talk about personal matters. He is not one to
blurt out things," she added.
Responding to rumours that she and Joost were seen in company well ahead of
the divorce she shakes her head. "I live with my parents. My
father would have skinned me alive if I had brought a married man home. I have too
much respect for them."
Now she no longer wants to keep her and Van der Westhuizen's relationship a
secret.
'If I want to date him, nothing will stop me'
She remembers well that she told her mother how much she enjoyed her single
life and how that made it possible to concentrate on her career.
"If I want to date him, nothing will stop me. He's divorced. There is a vibe
between us."
Vittone had suggested that they go to public places
together. "When people saw us together in the weeks after the divorce, we
were given dirty looks. The news of the divorce only appeared in newspapers a while later."
Responding to the Hartenbos saga, where they reportedly had a ball, she is
frank: "I'll swear on the Bible that he was nowhere near Hartenbos. He
wasn't even in the vicinity."
She was in the public eye the entire time and "I
would never be that stupid to have him there with me."
She disclosed that Joost was given her telephone number by SuperSport. In
that time she constantly changed her cellphone number, after damaging or
losing five cellphones during performances.
Asked whether she was concerned over the relationship between her and Van der Westhuizen which will now be in the limelight, she said: "We are both strong
people. We are no longer 21 and we know what we want from life."