Patrick Swayze's widow Lisa Niemi Swayze opened up about all the "flak" she said she received for remarrying following her late husband's death from pancreatic cancer.
The Dirty Dancing actor was 57 when he succumbed to the disease on September 14, 2009, 20 months after receiving the grave diagnosis.
Lisa Niemi was 14 when she first met Swayze, who was then 18. She was taking dance lessons from his mother, who owned and directed the Houston Ballet Dance Company.
They tied the knot in 1975 when she was 19 and they were married for 34 years until his death.
Now 67, she opened up on Sunday's episode of Amy and T.J. Podcast about the backlash for marrying jeweler Albert DePrisco in 2014.
She recalled all the toxicity from Swayze's "rabid" fans reacting to her moving on.
She said:
“Yes, I got a lot of flak. It’s like, ‘How dare you.’"
"There are some pretty rabid Patrick fans out there who think I’m evil, just don’t like me because I was married to him."
You can listen to the discussion from the podcast here.
Forever Dirty Dancing with Lisa Swayzeyoutu.be
The writer, director, and star of the 2003 film One Last Dance, also starring Swayze, continued:
“So there was a lot of flak that came on that, a lot of criticism, and you just learn to deal with it and move on."
"But it’s like, I was so tempted so many times to say, ’Hey, girlfriend, stand in my shoes, tell me about it."
"Go ahead. Tell me just because I lost my husband that I don’t love him anymore.”
“How could you say that?′ she added. “Ridiculous.”
She talked about how she came to marry her current husband through a mutual friend who set them up.
“If we had met before then, it wouldn’t have happened, but after three years we were about ready,” she said of DePrisco.
“We were introduced by longtime friends that we had both known for 30 years who vouched for the other person.”
When DePrisco proposed, it was a moment she wasn't emotionally prepared for.
However, a dream involving Swayze comforting her assuaged her initial apprehension over finding love again.
She recalled of the dream:
“He came up to me and he put his arms around me."
“And I was like, ‘I can’t marry Albert now because you’re back.’ and he just looked at me."
“His words that came to me were, ‘I know you love me.’”
She interpreted the dream as one of reassurance.
“It was like he was letting me know that it didn’t change how we felt about each other in our relationship with each other," she said, adding:
"It was like giving a blessing.”
She said the memory of her former love remains a part of her and doesn't minimize her adoration for her current husband.
“Patrick is still with me," she said of Swayze.
"I still have a relationship with him; he’s physically not here, [but] every day he’s with me and I feel him there."
“What was really unusual was ... I really fell in love with Albert, and it didn’t affect...it was interesting to see how it didn’t affect my love for Patrick one bit.”
“Just because you lose a loved one doesn’t mean you stop loving, and you don’t have that love to give."
"And I think Albert and I were fortunate to find someone to give that love to.”
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