Chinese-Mexican showgirl Lyn May starred in almost a hundred films, captivating both presidents and viewers. Known as “The Goddess of Love,” her life abruptly changed in the early 1990s when a regular Botox session went horribly wrong, permanently changing the way she looked.
Lyn’s early years were difficult. She was born in Acapulco, Mexico, in 1952 as Lilia Guadalupe Mendiola Mayares. Selling mementos to tourists helped her family financially. Later, she worked as a waitress, where she met the American sailor who was thirty years her older and became her first love. After relocating to Mexico City and having two daughters, the couple’s relationship ended when Lyn accused him of abuse.
Lyn started her dancing career in Acapulco after getting divorced. Television producers were immediately drawn to her distinctive approach, which resulted in appearances on the hit program *Siempre en Domingo*. After she gained notoriety, she was approached by Enrique Lombardini, who extended an invitation for her to participate in burlesque productions at Teatro Esperanza Iris. After initially being apprehensive, Lyn gradually came to love the burlesque look, which made her famous in the Ficheras films of the 1970s and 1980s and earned her the title “Lyn May: The Goddess of Love.” But Lyn’s notoriety declined along with the box office success of these movies.
Reminding everyone of her timeless appeal, Lyn May triumphantly returned to the spotlight in the late 1990s, making appearances in music videos, TV shows, and documentaries. Her public character may have been audacious, but her private life was tragic. In 1989, following her divorce from her first husband, Lyn wed businessman Antonio Chi Su. Together, the couple founded a Chinese restaurant, but their joy was short-lived as Chi Su died in 2008 from prostate cancer. In a surprising admission made in an open interview, Lyn later acknowledged to exhuming her husband’s body and slept next to it while she struggled to deal with her loss.
Lyn May’s life has been full of audacious claims and contentious deeds, such as her assertion that she had an affair with a previous Mexican president, but she never revealed who he was. She wed film producer Guillermo Calderón Stell in 2008, and they remained together until his passing in 2018.
When Lyn revealed she was expecting her 68-year-old fiancé, Markos D1, at the age of 29, in 2021, she grabbed headlines once more. Many people were skeptical of the news and expressed a great deal of curiosity, with many doubting its veracity. Later on, it came to light that the revelation of her pregnancy was a PR ploy to highlight her impending farewell tour.
Lyn May has faced difficulties in her quest for beauty. An attempt at a cosmetic operation early in her career to improve her facial features went horribly wrong. Instead of injecting collagen, a con artist gave her cooking oil injections, which left her face covered in ugly lumps. The fact that the damage was not completely healed after several surgeries served as a constant reminder of her pursuit of perfection.
Even in modern times, Lyn May is still regarded as a fascinating and resilient person. Her narrative is one of not just fame and beauty but also of personal hardship and the will to follow her own path.
CBS Mornings’ Gayle King, 69, makes debut as cover girl for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue
Once she decided to go through with the photoshoot she set a few ground rules. She wasn’t going to starve herself and she didn’t want any retouching of her photos, except for “a few dimples on her thighs.”
“My grandmother said to me [when I was little], ‘Mother nature was not as kind to you as she was to other little girls. Maybe you need to start wearing makeup.’ I just never saw myself this way.”
She added, “I know what I look like before I go into hair and makeup, so it’s hard for me to go from that to [the cover]. That’s something I have to process myself.”
King had nothing to worry about.
When she arrived at the photo shoot in Mexico, she said photographer Yu Tsai made her feel like “Beyoncé, Jennifer Lopez, Halle Berry all rolled into one.”
“I felt so comfortable and cared for that I didn’t even have time to feel self-conscious.”
“I never in a million years thought I would be standing here in a bathing suit for Sports Illustrated [Swimsuit], but here I am, which says to me that sometimes people can dream, God can dream, the universe can dream a bigger dream than you can ever think for yourself,” King told Sports
Illustrated. “I would have never thought this was possible. This was nowhere on my bucket list. So I’m thinking maybe it was a dream that I didn’t even know I wanted because now that I’m here, I want it bad.”
Gayle looks amazing! I think it’s wonderful how Sports Illustrated showcases all different ages, body types, and races in their issue. We’re not all the same, and everyone deserves to be represented.
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