Isabel
Vargas Llosa with his wife Patricia, 70.
A Nobel prize-winning novelist has left his wife of 50 years for the glamorous mother of Enrique Iglesias, known as the 'Pearl of Manila'. Peru's Mario Vargas Llosa, 79, is now stepping out with 64-year-old former beauty queen Isabel Preysler after dumping his wife Patricia, 70.
One of Spain's leading socialites, Preysler was pictured last week walking hand in hand with Vargas Llosa during a 'romantic journey' to Portugal in Hola!, the Spanish gossip magazine.
The writer told the magazine:
'Our relationship is going very well,' adding: 'I would prefer not to speak about my
private life, and Isabel agrees.'
Spanish 'high society' tongues had been wagging for weeks after photos emerged of Preysler and Vargas Llosa enjoying a lunch together in Madrid after they flew in from a black-tie dinner in London as guests of Prince Charles.
Two days later the author, awarded the Nobel prize in literature in 2010, used his official Twitter account to confirm he had been seeing Preysler for eight months. She is known in her native Philippines as the 'Pearl of Manila' and in Spain as the 'Queen of Glamour'.
Preysler met Julio Iglesias when he was a teenage footballer dreaming of a singing career and they had three children together, including pop star Enrique, before their marriage was annulled in 1979.
She is known for her unfading youthful looks, which she puts down to to 'an active lifestyle' rather than surgical intervention.
Preysler, who has been married three times, has her own face-cream company and lucrative modelling deals for luxury brands such as Manolo Blahnik shoes and Porcelanosa tiles. She and her family, which include son Enrique's partner and former tennis star Anna Kournikova, feature frequently in Hola! and Spain's fashion press.
The daughter of a wealthy Filipino aristocrat, Preysler came to Spain as a teenager after winning a beauty pageant in Manila. A playboy admirer thought by her parents to be a bad influence was the reason she was sent to live with an uncle and aunt in Madrid.
Her second marriage was to a Spanish marquess, Carlos Falco, and her third to Miguel Boyer, a Spanish politician, who left his wife for her. Boyer died in 2014 aged 75.
Preysler and Vargas Llosa first met in 1986 when she interviewed him for Hola! According to Spanish daily El Mundo, the pair rekindled a 'certain chemistry' when they met at a corporate lunch.
Vargas Llosa has been heavily criticised in the Spanish press for his handling of the split with Patricia, with whom he has three grown-up children and who is also his first cousin.
In April he reportedly told his spouse of half a century:
'It's not a fling like the other times, Patricia, this time it's for real, and when I get back to Madrid, I'll be leaving our house.'
He is said to have added: 'I'm done. Now I feel what happiness is. I don't have much time left.'
Curiously, the following month, in a video that surfaced recently on a newspaper website, he was seen laughing and clapping while celebrating his golden wedding in New York with his wife, children and grandchildren.
Despite being a critic of low-brow culture, Vargas Llosa chose to reveal his new relationship, coupled with a request for privacy, in Hola! — parent magazine of Britain's Hello! — prompting charges of hypocrisy.
The magazine reportedly paid up to £600,000 for its 'exclusive' piece on the 'madly in love' couple.
The Swedish Academy cited Vargas Llosa's portraits of an 'individual's resistance, revolt and defeat' when they awarded him the Nobel prize in literature in 2010. His 16th novel, The Discreet Hero, was published in English this year.
His first wife, Julia Urquidi, was his aunt by marriage, 10 years his senior and the inspiration for the character of Aunt Julia in his 1977 novel Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, which became a film.
-DailyMailUK