Fidel Castro’s revolutionary lover, Natalia Revuelta, has died at the age of 89 in Havana.
Natalia Revuelta, a Cuban socialite, emptied her bank account and sold her jewelry to support Fidel Castro when he was planning his insurgency.
She caught the eye of Fidel Castro when he was a young revolutionary in 1952.
Fidel Castro used her home for meetings when he was plotting the start of the revolution.
They later had an affair that produced a daughter, Alina, but they never married.
Natalia Revuelta, known as Naty Revuelta, was considered one of the most beautiful women in Cuba.
Blonde and green-eyed, Natalia Revuelta was a noticeable figure in Havana’s social scene when she met Fidel Castro in 1952.
She was married at the time to a heart surgeon nearly twenty years her senior but observers said she appeared to have had an appetite for revolution and adventure.
Natalia Revuelta allowed Fidel Castro to use her home for meetings when he was beginning to plot his insurgency.
She handed over all her savings to support Fidel Castro’s movement and later pawned her sapphires, emeralds and diamond jewelry for his cause.
The couple never married and Fidel Castro initially refused to recognize his daughter.
When he did, the girl was 12 years old and struggled to reconcile with her natural father.
In 1993, Alina Fernandez Revuelta left Cuba disguised as a Spanish tourist to live in the US.
Although Natalia Revuelta had little contact with Fidel Castro once their affair was over, she remained in Cuba holding various government jobs.
In an interview Naty Revuelta once said she was never bitter that Fidel Castro put his revolutionary project first. She also said: “It took years to get him out of my heart.”
Fidel Castro had many out-of-wedlock affairs – one, briefly, with the famous Ava Gardner and others with not-so-famous beauties such as Marita Lorenz. But the most fascinating, by far, was the one with Naty Revuelta because it is that prism that provides the deepest insight into the historic figure known as Fidel Castro.
