The former student and ex-husband of Mary Kay Letourneau is mourning her death from cancer.
Vili Fualaau "lost a piece of himself" when ex-wife Mary Kay Letourneau died from cancer, a friend said. Letourneau, who served more than seven years in prison for raping Fualaau when he was her 12-year-old sixth grade student, died at age 58 on Monday after battling cancer.
"He lost a piece of himself," Fualaau's friend told People. "He understands how f****d 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."
The pair didn't speak every day, but Letourneau updated Fualaau on her cancer treatment, which they initially hoped would be successful.
"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.
The two married in 2005 and Fualaau filed for separation in 2017. They have two grown daughters.
"She would talk to Vili or he would call her to see how she was doing," the friend said. "The marriage had split up, but they still had love for each other. 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."
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