Patrick Swayze’s Widow Lisa Niemi Announces Engagement
Patrick Swayze’s widow has found love once again. Four years after her husband’s death, Lisa Niemi is engaged to jeweller Albert DePrisco, whom she met through mutual friends over a year ago.
Her rep confirmed the happy news to People magazine, saying that Niemi’s 58-year-old fiancé asked her the question on Christmas Eve.
A year after Swayze’s demise from pancreatic cancer in 2009, his widow admitted that she was open to the possibility of finding love again.
“I would love companionship love. Absolutely. I hope I’m not one of these women who never want to have another relationship,” she told People then.
“But who knows, that’s another bridge I’ll cross when I come to it. I may get there and go, I don’t know. But I like to think that I can.”
Niemi, 57, was married to the Swayze from 1975 until his death. She met him when she was just 15 years old and he was 18 while she was a student at his mother’s dance company. They had no children.
In January 2012, Niemi released her memoir “Worth Fighting For: Love, Loss and Moving Forward,” a New York Times bestseller about her recovery from losing the love of her life.
In 2009, shortly after Swayze’s death, she released the memoir she co-wrote with him, “The Time of My Life.”
“I’m a lucky woman to have had him,” she told “Good Morning America.” “We’ve had an incredible life together, and we got to really see that.”
The book, which Swayze finished writing with Niemi before his death, only addresses his illness in the final chapter.
He wrote that he loved showing off his dance skills for the girls at his mum’s studio, but “I was there when a particular 15-year-old girl with long blond hair starting showing up.”
He continued, “I was still intrigued by this mysterious, beautiful girl, but she acted as cool as ever to me. But then came the moment we first danced together on stage. And suddenly, everything changed.”
Patrick Swayze with Lisa Niemi: