A 35-year-old Russian influencer got a lot of backlash after announcing her upcoming marriage to the 20-year-old stepson she helped raise for 10 years.
Marina Balmasheva, who rose to fame in Russia for documenting her weight-loss adventure online, is getting a lot of attention these days, because of her controversial new romantic relationship. Shortly after divorcing her 45-year-old husband, to whom she had been married for 1o years, the Instagram influencer announced that she was romantically involved with her 20-year-old stepson, Vladimir. The couple reportedly plan on tying the knot in the near future and having children of their own…
The announcement was enough to stir up a heated debate in conservative Russi, but for some reason Balmasheva thought that it would be a good idea to post side by side photos of her and Vladimir when she was 22 and he was 7-years-old, and now, as a couple. This really upped the negative feedback up to extreme, with many calling her behavior immoral.
“You never know how life will turn out and when you will meet a person who makes you smile,” Marina Balmasheva wrote on Instagram. “I know that some will judge us, others will support us, but we are happy and wish you to be as well.”
Balmasheva and her former husband, Aleksy, had adopted five children together, plus the two boys he had from a previous marriage. Apparently she had also wanted to have children of her own, and Russian media had speculated that one of the causes for their breakup was the inability to conceive.
Ananova News reports that the woman’s relationship with Vladimir developed as she struggled with her weight, dropping 58 kilograms from the 132 kilograms she weighed initially. When they both realized that they shared a mutual attraction, they went public.
Many of Marina’s fans reacted negatively to the announcement of her new lover and their plans to get married, and they weren’t the only ones. Child services have now taken away five of her adoptive children and placed them with her ex-husband. She was told that even though she can still see the children every now and then, she can’t take them away for days at a time, or post photos and videos of them online.
“We had some sort of agreement with the child services. I was supposed to have a deal with them and they would not make trouble for me or Aleksey (her ex-husband). They would not oppose us seeing each other, would not prohibit me taking the children. But I got played,” Balmasheva told Russian reporters.
It is unclear whether Marina Balmasheva plans to appeal the decision to have her children taken away, but her relationship with Vladimir is moving forward, as are their plans for a wedding. meanwhile, they are trying to ignore all the negative feedback and crude online comments.
“What shocks me most is that this boy grew up before her very eyes,” one Instagram user wrote, while others made jokes about Marina trading in her older ex-husband for a “newer model”.
