#Vili Fualaau ‘lost a piece of himself’ after ex-wife Mary Kay Letourneau died: friend

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Vili Fualaau with Mary Kay Letourneau Fualaau.
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Vili Fualaau — whom Mary Kay Letourneau raped when he was 12 years old but went on to marry and have kids with — “lost a piece of himself” when she lost her battle with cancer this week, a close friend of his said in a new interview.

Fualaau’s pal told People magazine that although the pair had been apart for three years, Letourneau, 58, had kept the 37-year-old informed about her Stage 4 colon cancer and they “still had love for each other.”

The former Washington state teacher achieved notoriety for her sexual relationship with the sixth-grader beginning in 1996, when police discovered them in a minivan parked in the suburban Seattle city of Des Moines Marina.

Letourneau initially told police the boy was 18, raising suspicions that something sexual was going on. About two months later, she became pregnant with Fualaau’s child.

She pleaded guilty in 1997 to raping the youngster. While awaiting sentencing, their daughter Audrey was born.

Letourneau’s sentence was reduced to six months in a plea deal, but two weeks after her release, they were caught having sex — when she was pregnant with their second child — and was jailed again.

The couple married on May 20, 2005, when she was a registered sex offender. In 2017, Fualaau filed for legal separation.

“They didn’t speak every day, but she would update him on her cancer treatment,” the friend told 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.”

The friend said that “as things got into the springtime, the thinking was that she was going to need a miracle.”

But by June, Letourneau’s cancer had “spread so much” that “she started saying her goodbyes,” the friend told the mag.

“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,” the friend continued. “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.”

After she succumbed to the disease, Fualaau “lost a piece of himself,” the friend said.

“He understands how f–ked 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.”