Cindy Breakspeare Reflects On How Shared Passion For Fitness Bolstered Bond With Bob Marley
If marching to the beat of one’s own drum was a lesson, Cindy Breakespeare could easily deliver the masterclass. A former model and Miss World, the mother of Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley is as grounded as she is fearless, the result of weathering many storms, not to mention her whirlwind romance with the King of Reggae, Bob Marley. Though the union between the uptown darling and the “dutty Rasta” was taboo in the volatile ’70s, the odd outcasts were more alike than most knew, sharing among other affinities a passion for fitness.
Looking stunning as ever in jeans and pastels, Cindy was a recent guest on the YouTube talk show Odyssey With Yendi. She delved into her riveting journey, and how their shared ideals on health and wellness strengthened the bond between her and the megastar musician.
Breakspeare’s pageant stint was actually a bodybuilding segue, a bid to “make life interesting” as she told host Yendi Phillips, also a former Jamaican beauty queen. With a “lack of options” and “no money within the family for higher education”, Cindy, then 20 years old, leaned on faith and an unrelenting need for freedom after years of boarding school.
“I was always the kind of person who just went with the flow. Whatever door opened to me, if that looked like a good door to walk through, I’m off. I’m gone right through,” she told Phillips.
She won the Miss Jamaica Body Beautiful title while working as the first instructor at the prestigious Spartan Health Club. The first prize was automatic entry into the Miss Universe Bikini pageant which she also won, and it was around this time in 1975 that the leggy beauty began dating the Gong.
Following that, Cindy said, the late Oscar Heidenstam — considered the Father of British Bodybuilding — recognized her potential and urged Spartan owner Mickey Haughton-James to get her into the Miss World pageant. Bob was on the brink of stardom following the release of the seminal album Catch A Fire, but he supported her preparations for the high-profile event.
“I really enjoyed the whole process of working out to be fit and looking optimally fit,” Breakespeare began. “I was excited about it and Bob was into it too so that was further motivation. That was something we had in common that maybe people wouldn’t think of because we were worlds apart so to speak, but we definitely had that and the eating of certain foods,” she said of her vegetarianism which at that time in history had pageant officials in a tizzy.
The ‘proud grandma of 6 boys’ has never had cosmetic surgery, and is ranked as the third most beautiful Miss World of all time. She’s a firm believer in health and wellness via diet and lifestyle, and it turned out, her regimen was already right on par with Bob’s.
Marley’s eldest son Ziggy said in the YouTube docu-series LEGACY: Rhythm of the Game that his father enjoyed every aspect of favourite pastime, football, “not only playing the sport but preparing for the sport.”
So great were the Gong’s sustained fitness efforts that in a 1993 interview, Cindy tearfully recalled the drastic physical decline during his illness compared to their heyday and happier times.
“I mean when you see someone that you love, who has been so vital and so incredibly healthy and physical, physically fit, and loving to be that way, I mean somebody who believes in exercising every day whether it was running, football, some light weights, just love to be fit. And when you see pictures of Bob without his shirt you can see how fit he was. There’s not an ounce of fat anywhere. It was just dreadful to watch him deteriorate like that,” Cindy told Marley historian Roger Steffens.
Despite their short time together, however, the man Cindy described as “encouraging, constructive and creative”, and who she says taught her “a lot about how to be a woman” was clearly also a galvanizing force in her life.
Towards the end of their talk, Phillips (Miss Jamaica World 2007 & Miss Universe 2010 1st runner up) asked Cindy for her top three survival tips. Cindy’s number one answer was atypical for a beauty queen, spoken like one who’d long since embraced a more natural livity.
“Take care of yourself,” she began. “Take care of the temple that you live in by your exercise and the way that you eat because that’s what’s gonna carry your spirit for your life. The spirit cannot exist without the body, not in this dimension anyway,” Breakespeare said.
Watch the full interview below.