How Did Julia’s Son Die From RHOM? Where the Case Is Now
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Rest in piece. Ever since the tragic passing of her first child, there have been questions about how Julia’s son died from RHOM and what happened to her five-month-old baby more than 20 years ago. Julia Lemigova is a cast member on The Real Housewives of Miami, Bravo’s reality TV series following the personal and professional lives of wealthy women living in Miami, Florida.
The series—which is a part of Bravo’s Real Housewives franchise featuring 11 cities across the world—premiered in 2011 and was canceled in 2013. It was rebooted by Peacock, NBC Universal’s streaming service, in 2021 after almost a decade off the air. The Real Housewives of Miami moved from Peacock to Bravo in 2023 in Season 6, which premiered in November 2023. Julia joined The Real Housewives of Miami in Season 5.
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During The Real Housewives of Miami, Julia revealed that her first child, a son named Maximilien, died when he was less than a year old from suspected shaken baby syndrome. What happened to Julia’s son from The Real Housewives of Miami? Read on for what’s been revealed so far about how Julia’s son died from RHOM.
How did Julia’s son die from The Real Housewives of Miami?
How did Julia’s son die from The Real Housewives of Miami? Julia and her ex, Edouard Stern, welcomed their first child together, a son named Maximilien Stern, in October 1999. Julia’s son was five months old when he died in 2000 at Necker Children’s Hospital in Paris from shaken baby syndrome while in the care of a Bulgarian nanny named Maya that Eduoard had hired. Julia and Edouard had broken by the time of her son’s death.
A concealed autopsy report revealed traces of diazepam, a sedative used to treat anxiety, muscle spasms, and seizures, were found in Julia’s son’s bloodstream, according to The Sun. A medical examination also suggested that Julia’s son had been shaken violently and potentially ied from shaken baby syndrome. The nannny disappeared before charges could be filed. The police stated at the time that there was insufficient evidence to proceed with a prosecution. The case was reopened in 2010, but was still never solved, according to The Daily Mail.
“I don’t know if I ever completely survived the loss of my son,” Julia told Page Six at the time. “Part of me is dead forever. At the time, I simply didn’t want to live. Selfishly, I wanted to end my life so many times. I wanted to join my son. I wanted to go away. In this horrible pain and through years of grief, I found joy in helping other people. Many women have told me they don’t know how you can survive something like this and not go completely insane, not kill yourself. How can you keep living, have more children, redo your life? It’s very, very difficult, but I’m proof that, yes, you can … [my wife] Martina [Navratilova] helped me a lot.”
In Season 6, Episode 14 of The Real Housewives of Miami, Julia revealed that the death of her son was why she’s no longer religious. “I went to church, but I still didn’t get any answers. In my case, it gave me more grief and pain. I just cannot walk into a church that easily,” Julia said in a confessional interview as the cast went to the Cathedral Metropolitana in Mexico City, Mexico.
Later in the episode, while on a gondola ride through the Island of Dolls, Julia was triggered by a strings of dolls that hung on lines between trees. The gondola captain explained that the Island of the Dolls originated from a man named Julian Santana, who was grieving a woman who had drowned in the area and would pray to the dolls for comfort.
How did Edouard Stern die?
How did Eduoard Stern die? Five years after the death of her son, Maximilien, Julia’s ex, Edouard, was found shot to death in his apartment in Geneva, Switzerland. He was murdered by his longtime lover, Cecile Brossard, who spent five years in prison for the crime. “My life has been very dramatic,” Julia told Page Six in 2022. “It was sad. It was happy. But I’m not a sad person, no matter how much I was beat up in life, and by people. We just have one life, and it goes by so fast. So I rise up to the surface and I’m unstoppable.”
How many kids does Julia have from The Real Housewives of Miami?
Along with her son, Maximilien, who died at five months old in 2000, Julia also has two daughters: Victoria, who was born in 2001, and Emma, who was born in 2005. Julia married her longterm partner, Martina Navratilova, on December 15, 2015. In Season 5 of The Real Housewives of Miami, Julia expressed her desire to adopt a child. While she still wants another child, she revealed at the reunion that season that she and Martina put their adoption plans on hold after Martina was diagnosed with Stage 1 throat cancer and early-stage breast cancer.
“When you’re adopting a child, it has to be about the child,” Julia said at the reunon. “And, right now, it’s everything about Martina, and for her [to be] getting healthy.”
She continued, “So, we’re putting it on hold. You know, we were thinking [that at] any moment, the agency would call and give us happy news that we’re going to have a baby… Instead, we are fighting two cancers. Like one was not enough.” Martina announced she was cancer-free in March 2023.
The Real Housewives of Miami airs on Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on Bravo and is available to stream on Peacock. Here’s how to watch it for free.
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For more on The Real Housewives, check out the 2021 book, Not All Diamonds and Rose: The Inside Story of The Real Housewives from the People Who Lived It. The number-one New York Times Bestseller, written by People reporter Dave Quinn, takes readers through the history of the Real Housewives franchise, from its first season with The Real Housewives of Orange County in 2006 to how it became the pop culture phenomenon Bravoholics know today with millions of fans across the world. Told through interviews with almost
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