De La Hoya's Cross-Dressing Photos, The Russian Mob And More

Oscar De La Hoya’s cross-dressing pictures caused quite a storm for the boxer. 

The Mexican’s ordeal was played out in his documentary, ‘The Golden Boy.’ And as part of that process, pictures of the boxer cross-dressing were leaked in 2007 by a Serbian dancer known as Milana Dravnel.

And given that the star was a six-division world champion, those pictures had a major impact on his reputation. 

De La Hoya’s Comments

"The lingerie, the this and that. I’ll tell you what. We got that girl from New York that leaked those photos.

"I’m not going to get into it, but we found her somewhere in [Lake Atitlán, Guatemala] hiding out and she said the truth of exactly what happened. apparently there were like three girls there.

"I have no recollection. I was just loaded. I can’t remember. I was drugged up, drinking, this and that," De La Hoya

Naturally, the boxer did everything in his power to minimize the damage that had emerged. As a result, Oscar attempted to pay off certain people in order to prevent the pictures from getting out.

And that included paying Dravnel a staggering amount of up to $20 million. But for all the measures that were taken to prevent this, the pictures were leaked anyway. 

De La Hoya And The Mob

"[My team] told me this story about the Russian mob and this and that and [how] we gotta pay millions of dollars. I’m like, ‘Yeah, well, just make it go away.

"It’s gonna ruin my image. It’s gonna ruin who the Golden Boy is and people are gonna hate me. Just make it go away. Apparently, they paid all this money, but yet the photos still leaked," De La Hoya told ET

As a result, the former world champion ended up suing Dravnel for defamation and the emotional damage that was caused by the photos.

The end result was a settlement out of court, but in truth, it didn’t stop the damage that had emerged to De La Hoya’s name.