'Yes we're married, now respect our privacy'

2009/12/20

By V. Vasudevan and Natasha Ilyas HERE

KUALA LUMPUR: The colourful and controversial Datuk Bung Mokhtar Radin has admitted to marrying starlet Zizie Ezette.

The 50-year-old Kinabatangan member of parliament now wants his privacy respected.

Bung Mokhtar is currently abroad but denied he is on honeymoon with his new wife.

"I am with my children," he said when contacted by the New Sunday Times yesterday.

The garrulous MP had just a few days ago denied marrying the 31-year-old actress when rumours spread within and outside Parliament of his nuptials.

Asked when the marriage took place and pressed for other details, he said: "Everybody knows. No need for details. The newspapers have been writing a lot about it this whole week.

"It is best to just leave it alone. Pray for my happiness. No need for so many details."

On why he had been so coy initially when the rumours were circulating, he said: "I am a married man. I have to protect my other wife."

Will he hold a grand wedding reception for family and friends?

"When it is the right time, I will hold a reception.

"I will invite you. I will let you know."

The Sabah lawmaker, who has over the years earned a reputation for his outbursts at the Dewan Rakyat, sported a new look at the just-concluded 2010 Budget meeting.

He had dyed his grizzled hair black and looked slimmer.

He said he had worked off some of the excess pounds by exercising.

"I just stopped dying my hair and it went back to my natural colour."

The actress' mother, Khathy Fauziah, had earlier said she had no problems accepting the 50-year-old married politician as her son-in-law.

Zizie, when contacted, said she "respected" Bung Mokhtar's confirmation of their marriage. She declined to comment further.

Efforts to contact Bung Mokhtar's first wife, Datin Nor Asidah Alimuddin, were futile, with one aide saying that she had changed her number and another claiming her phone had been switched off the past few days.