Patrick Swayze’s former wife says the late actor’s fans slammed her for finding love again after the “Dirty Dancing” star’s death in 2009.
On Sunday’s episode of the “Amy and T.J. Podcast,” Lisa Niemi Swayze, 67, reflected on catching “a lot of flack” for getting remarried to Albert DePrisco in 2014, after Patrick died from pancreatic cancer at 57.
“Yes, I got a lot of flack — it’s like, ‘How dare you.’ There are some pretty rabid Patrick fans out there who think I’m evil, just don’t like me because I was married to him,” Niemi Swayze said, of Patrick’s fans’ reactions to her moving on.
“So there was a lot of flack that came on that, a lot of criticism, and you just learn to deal with it and move on. But it’s like — I was so tempted so many times to say, ’Hey, girlfriend, stand in my shoes, tell me about it. Go ahead — tell me just because I lost my husband that I don’t love him anymore.”
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“How could you say that?′ she added. “Ridiculous.”
Lisa and Patrick first met at his mother’s ballet school in Houston, Texas when she and the “Road House” actor was teenagers. They were married from 1975 until his death.
The “One Last Dance” actress went on to explain how she met her current husband DePrisco after their mutual friends played matchmaker.
“If we had met before then, it wouldn’t have happened, but after three years we were about ready,” she recounted. “We were introduced by longtime friends that we had both known for 30 years who vouched for the other person.”
Niemi went on to admit that her first thought was “oh s**t” when DePrisco proposed, because she hadn’t envisioned getting married again.
She said it wasn’t until she had an encouraging dream about Patrick that she even considered it.
“He came up to me and he put his arms around me,” she recalled of the dream. “And I was like, ‘I can’t marry Albert now because you’re back.’ and he just looked at me,” she said. “His words that came to me were, ‘I know you love me.’”
She added, “It was like he was letting me know that it didn’t change how we felt about each other in our relationship with each other. It was like giving a blessing.”
Elsewhere in the episode, Lisa explained how her current marriage hasn’t changed her love for Patrick “one bit.”
“Patrick is still with me. I still have a relationship with him; he’s physically not here, [but] every day he’s with me and I feel him there,” she said. “What was really unusual was … I really fell in love with Albert, and it didn’t affect — it was interesting to see how it didn’t affect my love for Patrick one bit.”
“Just because you lose a loved one doesn’t mean you stop loving, and you don’t have that love to give,” Lisa added. “And I think Albert and I were fortunate to find someone to give that love to.”