At an age when most people slow down, a high-profile couple have shocked Knysna with a dramatic public break-up.
He’s 68, she’s 62 and for seven years they ran her stud farm in the Knysna forest together. But two years ago their relationship went sour overnight. There were allegations he’d tried to poison her and of bouncers manhandling him. He was kicked out of her luxury home and now lives in a hut on another farm.
Surfing legend IAN “MAC” MCDONALD won the first round in court against former lover LESLEY YOUNG. They’ll be back in court in three months when Mac will make history in SA as the first man in a cohabitation relationship to sue a woman for maintenance.
Lesley was a malicious widow, magistrate Gerald Mentor said when he ordered her in the first court action to pay Mac R160 000 in damages for robbery, assault and defamation.
At 59 Mac gave up everything to devote himself to her enterprises, he says. Now, at almost 70, he has to start again. That’s why he’s demanding either monthly maintenance or half the value of their R4-million apartment at St Francis Bay.
“I don’t care about money - it’s about principles and the things I gave up at a late stage in my life to throw all my weight behind Lesley as her life partner,” Mac says.
They were introduced by a mutual friend nine years ago after their partners had both died of cancer, and eventually shared a home. “I realised we lived in two different worlds,” Mac says. “I’m a free spirit. Material things aren’t as important to me as health and happiness.
“Lesley is British, very status-conscious and a snob of note. It was clear money was important to her.”
The blow-up came two years ago. He returned from a wedding she’d refused to attend and found his possessions had been thrown out of the house. “That was the turning point for me,” Mac says. “I was shocked at the way she treated me after all we’d shared.”
