Four failed marriages and a string of link-ups later, Salman Rushdie may have finally found his perfect match.
The Booker-winning novelist is currently believed to be happy in the company of athlete-model Aimee Mullins, 28 years younger and at least two inches taller than him. The two were seen at a Manhattan party earlier this month, where guests said they looked more than just friends — as the two would have liked others to believe. “Aimee said, ‘We’re good friends, we are close friends’. They certainly looked like they were on a date. They arrived together, left together and were being touchy feely,” the Daily Mail quoted a guest as saying. “Salman would take her arm as they walked around the room and when he was talking to people, she’d wait a step behind him. She said they’d been to a movie earlier that day and they’d been drinking together since the afternoon.”
Meet the muse
Aimee Mullins (32) is a world record holder at the 1996 Paralympics. A successful model, Mullins was listed in the world’s top 50 beauties by People magazine. She charges as much as £12,000 for motivational lectures.
Rushdie, whose Enchantress of Florence was recently released, has been linked to several women, including a Bollywood actor, since his heart-breaking divorce from fourth wife Padma Lakshmi.
What possibly attracted Rushdie, 60, to Aimee, the daughter of an Irish immigrant to the US, is her courage and determination. Aimee was born without shin bones, and her legs were amputated below the knee when she was one. The fresh-faced beauty, rated by People as one of the world’s top 50 beauties, fought back. Wearing artificial stumps, she became a champion athlete, setting world records at the 1996 Paralympics.
A lucrative career as a model followed. She became a star attraction in catwalks and appeared on the cover of fashion magazines. “If I want something, I get it,” Aimee was quoted as saying.