Sugar-free: Juanita Leonard has a new life and a new love - former wife of boxer Sugar Ray Leonard - Interview

Ebony, May, 1992 by Laura B. Randolph

After almost 20 years of living in the shadow of multimillionaire boxing champion Sugar Ray Leonard, Juanita Leonard says, "Its my turn now." Visiting new love, singer Peabo Bryson, in Atlanta, she shares (above right) a secret. In her Maryland home (below), she pampers herself in the Jacuzzi. Before heading for the gym for a workout with her personal trainer, she makes a call (below, right) from the car in front of her home.

Former wife of boxing champion reveals the pains of separation and the joys of being her own woman

JUANITA LEONARD is weeping softly. "My lawyer told me I didn't need to go," she says, referring to the official court pronouncement that her 10-year marriage to six-time world boxing champion Ray Leonard was over. "But I knew I had to be there. I knew that for me to accept that it was really finished, I had to hear the judge say the words myself."

Juanita is sitting, legs crossed, in the middle of her kingsized bed, staring out the window of her Bowie, Md., home, remembering how hard it was to accept the words, even though by the time the judge declared her marriage over, she and Ray had not lived together for two-and-a-half years.

"Being separated is something different," she muses. "You're still married and so you still have a certain amount of ties to each other. But when the judge said, '1 grant you the divorce and as of December 18, 1990, you are no longer marr/ed...' it was like a door was slamming shut. And before it completely closes, every moment that you ever had together flashes back."

Moments no judge's words could ever erase. Like the day--"It was June 24, 1972"--she first set eyes on Ray. "He was hideous," she says half-laughing, half-crying. "He had this big raggly, scraggly Afro and he used to wear these 'Bama clothes--platform shoes and checkered pants."

But she fell in love with him anyway. She was 14 and the prettiest girl in their neighborhood in Palmer Park, Md. He was 15 and a Golden Gloves boxer on his way to the Olympic trials. "There was," she says, her voice breaking, "just something about Ray."

That something is why it took her so long to leave the court room that cold afternoon in December. Long after the judge had finished, she just stood there, frozen, unable to move, thinking about the way it used to be with her and Ray.

Ray, the man whose baby she had at 16. ("He was the only person I told until I was six months pregnant..)

Ray, the man who took a part-time job at the neighborhood recreation center when he found out she had quit school and was pumping gas full-time so she would have enough money to keep Ray Jr. in clothes and milk. ("He was so proud because he could finally help Ray Jr. and me," she says, tears streaming down her cheeks. "He gave me his first paycheck--it was $65 dollars. I will never forget it. He borrowed his sisters car--she had this little Vega--and said, "Let's go. I'm taking you to buy Ray Jr. some new shoes. '")

Ray, the Olympic hero, who made sure the night he won the gold medal the whole world knew she was his gid. ("I thought, Oh, God Im gonna die," says Juanita, remembering the way her heart raced when she saw Ray had taped her picture to his sock so she could be in the ring with him when he danced and jabbed his way into Americas heart.)

But all that was a life time ago--before their marriage bled to death on the cross of deceit, neglect and worldwide fame. Before she reconciled herself to the fact it was beyond salvation. Before Ray accepted it too. "I knew ff I had not been the one to walk out, he would still be there," she sighs. "He would still be doing the things that he did, but he would still be home."

The "things that he did" tore their marriage--and her--apart, Juanita says. Though the public image of their relationship was made-for-the movies perfect, quite a different reality--one riddied with violence and infidelity-- dwelled behind the doors of their sixbedroom mansion in Potomac, Md.

It started in 1982, just two years after they wed, when Ray had to have eye surgery after learning he had suffered a detached retina in training. Faced with the very real possibility he would never fight again, he tried to purge his anguish with drugs and alcohol, hoping that through some combination of booze and cocaine he could banish his fear that, at 26, he was washed up, a has-been whose song had been sung.

"If I had been an adult, I could have walked away," Ray said, after sealed court testimony in which he admitted to using drugs and physically abusing Juanita was made public. "I had money. I had fame and glory and a beautiful family. I should have thanked God for the blessings. That I could do what I did was almost inconceivable."

Despite the "inconceivable" things he did that became public when divorce testimony was leaked--coming home drunk, pulling Juanita out of bed and throwing her around; pouring kerosene in the foyer of their home and threatening to burn it down, throwing lamps and knocking mirrors off walls-Juanita for years stood by his side. Which leads to the obvious, if difficult question: why-- how--could she stay?