Pele, a man of many interests: A spotlight on mighty king's life away from 'the beautiful game'

One of the greatest players of all time, Brazilan forward football player, Pele's life off the field was as eventful as his record-breaking career on the field. He was married thrice, had several affairs and enjoyed a range of trailblazing sponsorship deals. Pele was 'O Rei' both on and off the field, from meeting Queen Elizabeth II, appointed as a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador in 1994, to being a devoted Catholic man, Pele lived a life king-size.

Marriages and Family life

In comparison to theunpredictable Diego Maradona, with whom he did compete for the title of best-ever footballer, Pele was often portrayed as secure and corporate-friendly, but his personal life was rife with issues. Pele married Rosemeri dos Reis Cholbi in 1996 and had two daughters and one son together: Kelly, Jennifer, Edson or 'Edinho'.

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His first son, Edinho born two months after his World Cup victory in 1970, was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison in 2017 for drug trafficking and money laundering. In an interview with Bleacher Report that year, Edinho described how Pele became an absentee father after moving the family to New York to play with the Cosmos in the North American Soccer League in the mid-1970s, leaving his first wife Rosemary dos Reis Cholbi shortly after arriving in the US.

He later settled with Edinho, a former goalkeeper at Santos, the club where Pele rose to prominence as a footballer, but his relationship with his first daughter was even more difficult. He refused to recognise Sandra Arantes do Nascimento, who was born in 1964 as a result of an affair with a maid, despite Brazilian courts ruling in 1996 that she was his child after a five-year legal battle.

Sandra Machadolater wrote a book titled "The Daughter The King Didn't Want".She died of breast cancer in 2006, at the age of 42. Pele refused to attend the funeral and had never met her two children.

In 2016, Pele, in his late 70s, married for the third time to 42-year-old businesswoman Marcia Aoki. Pele and Aoki met in New York in the 1980s but didn't start dating until 2010 when they met in an elevator in Sao Paulo.

Brand endorsements

Pele made a fortune by endorsing Visa and Mastercard, as well as sandals made from recycled tyre parts.
Barbara Smit's book "Sneaker Wars" describes how, during the 1970 World Cup, Pele struck a deal with Puma that paid him $25,000 for the tournament, plus $100,000 over the next four years and a cut of branded boot sales.

The agreement, which broke a pact between Puma and fierce rival Adidas not to sign Pele due to the high cost of a bidding war, was made on the condition that he ties his shoelaces before Brazil's quarter-final match against Peru.He did as he was told, the cameras captured the moment, and he earned himself a cool $2.85 million in today's money, not counting what he made from boot sales.

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His most famous endorsement, however, came in 2002, when he lent his name to the impotence treatment Viagra, encouraging viewers inside Rio de Janeiro's Maracana stadium to "talk to your doctor, I would!".

Due to his advertising campaign for the drug, he was named Japan's first educational ambassador for erectile dysfunction the same year. Pele, on the other hand, claimed that he had never used Viagra.

Man of many interests

Pele is best known to anglophone filmgoers for his role as Corporal Luis Fernandez in "Escape to Victory," in which a motley crew of POWs attempts to flee a German World War II prison camp. That film, in which he co-starred with Michael Caine and Sylvester Stallone, was the pinnacle of his film career. Other efforts, such as the 1983 film "A Minor Miracle," in which a priest requests Pele's assistance in saving an orphanage, had a smaller impact.

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Other appearances include a cameo in "Mike Bassett: England Manager", but he refused to appear in an ESPN documentary about the New York Cosmos because producers wouldn't pay the $100,000 fee he demanded.

Pele was also no stranger to the world of music, having recorded as long ago as 1960. In 2006, he even released an album in collaboration with the famed Brazilian singer/songwriter Gilberto Gil.

A decade later, he released "Esperanca" ("Hope"), a song commemorating the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Pele recorded a song with Grammy-winning Mexican duo Rodrigo and Gabriela for his 80th birthday in 2020, billed as "a little birthday present for his fans and himself."

Once upon a time...

One of his most terrifying experiences occurred during a Pepsi-sponsored trip to Lagos, Nigeria in 1976, just as an unsuccessful military coup was launched. During the attempted coup, then-ruler General Murtala Mohammed was assassinated. Pele was in Lagos at the same time as Arthur Ashe, who was competing in the Lagos Tennis Classic.

During his semi-final match against Jeff Borowiak, then-Wimbledon champion Ashe was literally dragged off the court by gun-toting soldiers and ended up at the same hotel as Pele.

Pele was smuggled out of the country after the government opened the borders, with Brazilian authorities insisting Pele disguise himself as a pilot to conceal his identity.

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