#palimony

“I wanted to tell the truth but my parents were homophobic...”

Billie Jean King is consider one of the world’s best tennis players of her era. Her won six Wimbledon Grand Slam singles tournament between 1966 and 1974. During the same period she won four US Open tournament.

Throughout her tennis career she fought for equality in player compensation, putting her at odds with the United States Lawn Tennis Association. She led the effort to create the first professional women's tennis tour in the 1970s.

And she famously defeated former men’s tennis champion Bobby Riggs in exhibition match in 1976, winning $100,000 for her efforts.

Billie Jean Moffat married Larry King (not the Tv host) in 1965. She said that Larry her to understand feminism and pursue a career in tennis.

Although she lived her husband, by 1968 she began to realize she was attracted to women. She developed a relationship with her secretary in 1971. Unfortunately ten years later she was sued for palimony. This caused King to come out publicly - the first major professional female to do so. The suit ended up costing $2 million in enforcements and forced King to extend her tennis career to pay attorneys fees.

King divorced her husband in 1987 but they continued to be friends. In fact, she became the godmother to Larry's son from his next marriage.

King has been in a relationship with Ilana Kloss for 43 years. King continues to be an advocate for gender equality. She also Is involved with the Women's Sports Foundation and the Elton John AIDS Foundation. (Elton’s song “Philadelphia Freedom” was inspired by King.)

Unmarried Ontario couple had no children and no house but man must still pay support, appeal court rules | National Post

TORONTO — A wealthy businessman will have to pay more than $50,000 a month in spousal support for 10 years to a woman with whom he had a long-term romantic relationship even though they kept separate homes and had no children together, Ontario’s top court has ruled.

Under Ontario law, an unmarried couple are considered common-law spouses if they have cohabited — lived together in a conjugal relationship — continuously for at least three years. But that doesn’t necessarily mean living in the same home, the court found.

“Lack of a shared residence is not determinative of the issue of cohabitation,” the Appeal Court said. “There are many cases in which courts have found cohabitation where the parties stayed together only intermittently.”