George Best’s first love changed her name and now lives as Buddhist nun
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A former model who was the first serious girlfriend of football legend George Best found “inner peace” after becoming a Buddhist nun and leaving the partying lifestyle behind.
In the swinging sixties, Jackie Glass, who later changed her name to Ani Rinchen Khandro, led a completely different life.
Ani Richen, who grew up in Manchester in a middle-class family, began modelling when she was 16 years old and moved to London as her career continued to flourish.
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She went to film premieres with The Beatles, partied with photographers such as David Bailey and his French actress wife Catherine Deneuve, and she even went to a shoot in Morocco where she ended up staying for a while to improve her French and helped translate a screenplay, Secret World, into English.
Her whirlwind romance with George Best began when they met in a nightclub in Manchester where Best approached her to ask for her number but she said no as “there was no point,” reports The Mirror.
At the time, Best played for Manchester United. He also had a range of businesses including a boutique which was opening the next day and he asked her to attend.
Ani Richen, who was at the club with a male friend, recalled: “This guy asked my friend if he could dance with me.
“He looked familiar and I realised it was George Best. I just remember thinking he was old-fashioned for asking! I know now George never danced, so it was quite extraordinary. He got self-conscious because everyone looked at him.
“He said ‘Can I have your number?’ I said there was no point because I lived in London. Then he asked me to the opening of his boutique the next day. He didn’t try to kiss me – he was a well-behaved man.”
She went to the opening of the boutique and by the time she got back to London, he had already left her a message.
They were together for two years before going their separate ways. They had talked about marriage but Ani Rinchen later admitted: “I didn’t want to be a footballer's wife.”
The last straw for the relationship came when she read about him being unfaithful. Despite begging for them to get back together, she stood her ground and walked away.
Ani Rinchen said: “We were together for a year properly and then another year off and on. I was his first love.
“He said it didn’t mean anything and tried to get back with me. I was tempted, but I couldn’t see things would change,” she continued: “We loved each other but our lifestyles were different. I didn’t want to be a footballer’s wife.”
A former agent recalled: “Women just flocked on him like bees on honey.”
They never spoke following their break up and she had her daughter Rosie with a tree surgeon.
According to the Mirror, when that relationship ended, she took her daughter travelling and settled in Bali, running a textiles business, and taking an interest in Buddhism.
Ani Rinchen, whose Buddhist name means precious, felt “spellbound” after hearing the Dalai Lama speak so when her daughter left home she went to live in a Buddhist monastery and a year later, was ordained as a nun.
She now lives alone, is celibate, meditates daily, wears plain red robes and no make-up.
“I had become bored with parties, people drinking a lot and talking rubbish,” Ani Rinchen, who manages a Tibetan Buddhist meditation centre in Edinburgh, said.
“I cut my long blonde hair off. I could feel the air on my head. It was liberating. I was giving up all the things that weren’t good for me – I didn’t tell my daughter until afterwards!
“I still like to have a joke – I’m a down-to-earth person,” she added “But I have simplified my life – I have inner peace.”
Best was said to always be surrounded by beautiful women and among his conquests included Eastenders icon and Carry On star Barbara Windsor, Miss Great Britain Carolyn Moore, Miss World Marjorie Wallace and Miss World Mary Stavin.
He was once famously found by a porter in a hotel suite with a naked beauty queen and £15,000 in cash strewn across his bed.
He left Manchester United at 27 years old after falling out with the new manager Tommy Docherty and moved to the USA where he played for a string of American clubs. Best married model Angie MacDonald-Janes in 1978 when he was playing for the Los Angeles Aztecs in 1976. They welcomed their son Calum three years later in 1981 but the couple split in 1982.
He retired from football in 1984 at 37 and continued to drink. His drinking would hit the headlines and he even served a sentence for drink-driving. Best got married for a second time to air stewardess Alex Pursey, 23, and they were together for nine years.
In the film documentary, George Best: All By Himself, she revealed he was a “fantastic husband” when he was sober but was different once he had a drink.
Best had a liver transplant in 2002 yet kept drinking and died at the age of 59 in 2005.
“In the end he didn’t want to stop drinking or couldn’t,” she said. “He had a vulnerable side and it was almost as if you just felt like looking after him.
“George sober was the most fantastic husband you could ask for. But unfortunately when he was drinking it was like two totally different people. George could be particularly violent with drink inside of him.”
When Best died Ani Rinchen was on a retreat to Holy Island, off the Northumberland coast, where she said they had a ceremony and said prayers for him.
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