19 January 2024 , 09:30
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UFC world champion Alex Pereira has revealed he discovered his girlfriend was already married - and has "deleted" her from his life.
Pereira was in a relationship with Merle Christine last year having previously divorced his wife with whom he has two children. But both Pereira and his partner later unfollowed each other on social media and deleted photos and videos of each other from their accounts. And now the Brazilian has opened up on the truth behind their break-up.
"Well, it’s a little hard to talk about this because for me, I already deleted this person from my life," he told the Full Send podcast. "I would also like to ask my fans to also delete her from your life. It was a person I believed, I put her in my house, with my family. After all, I found out, she was married."
At the time of their break-up, Pereira's girlfriend took to social media to say: "It seems like all these comments and rumors are not stopping, so I think it's important to make a little statement. Sometimes in life, a relationship doesn’t work, and people decide to take two different ways. And I think it’s something everybody has to respect, and it doesn’t mean that there is bad blood between these two people... I wish Alex all the best and a lot of success in his career."
Pereira is a two-weight world champion having defeated Jiri Prochazka in New York last November to win the light-heavyweight crown. He previously beat bitter rival Israel Adesanya to become middleweight champion before losing his title in their rematch.
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Pereira has been linked with a move to heavyweight - and a fight against interim champion Tom Aspinall at UFC 300. But while the Brit is not against the fight, he feels the size difference would be too great. "If he wants to, I will,” Aspinall explained on his YouTube channel. "But I’m going on record and saying: I’m not a bully. I don’t bully smaller guys. But, if the smaller guy wants a scrap, count me in."