Cristiano Ronaldo has settled into life at his new football club, Juventus, pretty well, but now he’s facing allegations that could have far-reaching implications.

A German magazine, Der Spiegel, ran a story detailing claims from a former hotel hostess, Kathryn Mayorga (pictured above with Ronaldo on the night in question), where she alleges that he raped her in his penthouse room at the Hotel Palms Place in Las Vegas in 2009.

The Portuguese superstar has already hit back, calling the allegations fake news, with his lawyers saying that they will sue the publication.

Mayorga says Ronaldo’s lawyers purchased her silence in 2010 with an out-of-court settlement (rumoured to be £288 000, or around R5,2 million), which she now regrets.

She says that because of the “more favourable climate created by the #MeToo movement”, she has decided to come forward.

Via the Daily Mail, here is some of Mayorga’s account from that night:

Relating how she encountered the footballer while drinking with friends in the hotel’s night club, Miss Mayorga says: ‘He just came up to me . . . grabbed my arm. And he was like: ‘‘You! Come with me!” I was like, are you joking?’

Paparazzi pictures show her talking to and dancing with the footballer and she says they exchanged phone numbers and she later got a text from him inviting her and a friend to a party in his suite.

She says he suggested they went for a swim but while she changed in one of the bathrooms, Ronaldo entered, exposed himself and begged her to touch him. He finally relented but insisted on a kiss. But the kiss turned into more.

‘He starts to come on to me very strong,’ she says. ‘And he starts to do stuff to me and touch me and grab me. I pushed him away and kept saying No.’

A friend of the player interrupted the encounter, she says, allowing her to finish dressing. But Ronaldo renewed his approach, despite Miss Mayorga allegedly telling him ‘Listen dude, this is not going to happen. No, No, No.’

Still, he persisted. ‘I turned away. He tried to take my underwear off. I turned away from him and curled up into a ball. And that’s when he jumped on me.’ she says, claiming she was then raped, without a condom.

‘After he assaulted me, he wouldn’t let me leave again. He wouldn’t let me leave. And he was calling me ‘baby, baby’. He gave me this look, this guilty look. Almost like he felt bad. I don’t remember but I’m pretty sure he said “sorry” or “are you hurt?” ‘And by this time, he’s . . . on his knees. He says the 99 percent thing.’

Her friend who had accompanied her to the party, said Miss Mayorga emerged from the bathroom in a complete state, her hair was dishevelled and her make-up smudged.’

That 99% thing would be where he went ‘down on his knees and said: ‘‘99% of me is a good guy, I just don’t know about the other 1%.’’ ’

During an Instagram live video posted over the weekend, Ronaldo was vehement in his denial:

Whilst Ronaldo’s legal team has gone into aggressive defence mode, and Ronaldo claimed back in 2009 that the sex was consensual, some of the correspondence casts doubt on that.

In particular, an email sent by his legal team:

…the player appears to admit that Miss Mayorga [below] asked him to stop and said ‘no’ several times.

Referred to as ‘X’, the player reportedly recalls that the alleged victim was lying on her side. ‘It was rude. We didn’t change position — 5/7 minutes. She said she didn’t want to, but she made herself available.’

And further on: ‘But she kept saying no. “Don’t do it. I’m not like the others.” I apologised afterwards. ‘She didn’t complain about it being brutal. She complained that I forced her. She didn’t say anything about wanting to go to the police.’

Mayorga’s parents say she has been struggling with trauma from the alleged rape for years:

Her mother Cheryl, 66, tells Der Spiegel: ‘It’s never left her. Every day, she lives it. There were times when she would call me, and [Ronaldo] would be on a billboard or whatever, and she would just completely disintegrate.’

Her father Larry Mayorga, a Las Vegas fireman, told the magazine about accompanying his daughter to the police station to lodge an initial complaint.

‘The detective told me: “Whoever did it, your daughter needs to let us know who this is.” ’

Looking at his daughter during the interview, he addresses her: ‘And then I talked to you and you refused.’ He says she told him: ‘You don’t understand Dad. This is bigger than you think.’

When Ronaldo was sent off on his Juventus Champions League debut against Valencia, he was in tears. Given Mayorga’s allegations, and the fact that there seems to be some corroborating evidence to her account, his tears may have been misplaced.

[source:dailymail]