ZUMA Press/MEGA
In the wake of Mary Kay Letourneau’s death, a friend of her estranged husband Vili Fualaau is speaking out to People.
Mary Kay died this week at 58 after a battle with colon cancer.
A friend of Fualaau’s shared with People, “At the beginning, the talk was that she was going to beat it, that even though the prognosis wasn’t good, that she’d fight with everything she had, and that she had a shot of surviving it.”
By spring, however, “the thinking was that she was going to need a miracle.”
Her health continued to decline, and by June the insider said the cancer had “spread so much” that “she started saying her goodbyes.”
The source added, “She would talk to Vili or he would call her to see how she was doing. The marriage had split up, but they still had love for each other. They had children together and he would always say that she was his first love. So of course he is sad at the loss. He’s sad for the girls, but he’s also sad for himself.”
The friend explained, “He lost a piece of himself. He understands how f— up everything was in how they got together. He’s not stupid. But he can’t turn off his feelings completely, and it’s a big loss for him. He talked to her right before she passed, and they said everything they needed to say.”
Vili and Mary Kay’s families previously released a statement to writer Danielle Bacher, saying, “Mary fought tirelessly against this terrible disease. Mary, and all of us, found great strength in having our immediate and extended family members together to join her in this arduous struggle. We did our very best to care for Mary and one another as we kept her close and stayed close together.”
Letourneau was the former sixth-grade teacher from the Seattle area who was arrested in 1997 for raping Fualaau, who was her 13-year-old student. She was 34 and a married mother of four at the time.
Mary Kay and Vili eventually wed in 2005, and raised two daughters: Audrey, 22, and Georgia, 21. Mary Kay was working as a paralegal in recent years, and Vili was working as a deejay.