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Boris Becker has opened up on his time in jail, his affair with a Russian model that ruined his marriage and his whirlwind rise into a global tennis star as a teenager for a new documentary.
The 55-year-old Becker was released from jail in England last December after serving eight months of a 30-month prison sentence for tax evasion. The six-time grand slam winner was convicted last April of hiding £2.5million-worth of assets and loans to avoid paying debts.
Upon release, he was deported from the UK and returned to Germany to rebuild his life. And the next step in his rehabilitation comes in a tell-all documentary with Apple called ‘Boom! Boom! The World vs. Boris Becker’.
The trailer dropped on Thursday and features legend of tennis such as John McEnroe, Bjorn Borg and Novak Djokovic – who has worked with Becker as a coach – reflecting on his legacy.
But it’s Becker in his own words that provides by far the most insight, especially when reflecting on his more controversial moments of his life.
A tearful Boris Becker reflects on going to jail as part of a new documentary about his life
Becker pictured attending court in London, with his partner Lilian de Carvalho, shortly before being sentence to 30 months in prison last April – he served eight before being released
On his time in prison, Becker gets tearful and chokes up as he admits: ‘I’ve hit my bottom. But that’s not the end yet, there is going to be another chapter.’
He also opens up about discovering about his lovechild after a fling with Russian model Angela Ermakova in 1999.
The affair cost him his marriage with then-wife, Barbara.
Becker has said previously that he had put the one-night stand with Ermakova out of his mind, until she later made contact with him to say she was eight months pregnant.
Picking up the story in the documentary, he explains: ‘She came in, she had a big coat on. She took the coat off and she was heavily pregnant. You just can’t believe it. The wake-up call came very late.’
Becker has previously opened up about his one night stand with Ermakova in his 2003 autobiography.
The fling occurred while his wife Barbara had gone to hospital as she was feeling discomfort during her own pregnancy with her and Becker’s son Elias. The encounter happened in a broom cupboard in London restaurant Nobu.
‘She looked directly at me, the look of the hunter that said, ‘I want you’,’ Becker recalled. ‘There she was again, walking twice past the bar. And again this look. A little while later she left her table for the toilet. I followed behind.
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Becker also opens up on the affair that cost him his marriage to his previous wife Barbara (left)
In 1999, Becker had a one-night stand with Angela Ermakova (right) in a restaurant in London – she later gave birth to his daughter Anna (left)
Becker initially denied Anna was his but later accepted that he was the father of her
‘Five minutes small talk and then straight away into the nearest possible place and down to business.
‘Afterwards she went off, I had another beer, paid and went back to my hotel. As there wasn’t any news from the hospital I went to bed around 2am. In the morning I went to Barbara: the pains were a false alarm. We packed up our things and left England.
‘As to the consequences of the previous evening I didn’t have a second thought.’
When Ermakova gave birth to a baby girl called Anna, Becker initially denied that he was the father before eventually accepting responsibility in 2001, when she was 10 months old.
Barbara left Becker soon after, but she appears in the documentary and explains what life was like for her when she and Becker were together.
‘To pick a black woman as his wife was a big deal,’ she says. ‘To the German press, it was a black and white thing.’
Becker shot to fame as a 17-year-old, bursting onto the tennis scene by winning Wimbledon
Becker at a February screening in Munich for his new documentary alongside partner Lillian
Becker shot to fame when we won Wimbledon at the age of just 17. Reflecting on his whirlwind rise, he says in the sneak preview: ‘Nobody told me to win Wimbledon at 17, I just did it. My game was power.’
McEnroe then says that Becker ‘was like Michael Jordan in Germany’.
Becker had a preview screening of his new documentary at the Berlin International Film Festival in February, which he attended alongside his current partner Lilian de Carvalho Monteiro. She stood by him during his time in jail.
The Apple filmmakers had access to Becker for more than three years – up until he went to prison. The documentary drops in full on April 7.
