Buster

Just As You Suspected, Boxer Oscar De La Hoya Was, In Fact, Wearing Those Fishnets, Heels, And Panties

Now that he is coming clean about his addiction to alcohol and cocaine, Oscar De La Hoya is also fessing up that he did, in fact, pose for a series of photos in fishnet stockings and assorted female undergarments.

In a new tell-all interview with Univision, the former boxing champion, 38, admitted that the photos, which were taken about four years ago, were authentic and that he did not want to continue lying about the matter. “Let me tell you, yes, it was me,” said De La Hoya, speaking in Spanish. “I’m tired of lying, lying to people, lying to myself.”

De La Hoya’s revelation comes three years after he used business associates, a cadre of high-powered lawyers, and the influential PR firm Sitrick and Company to threaten, smear, and bludgeon 23-year-old stripper Milana Dravnel, with whom he posed in some of the images, which were distributed by the X17 photo agency.

When her eight-month affair with the married De La Hoya ended in late-2007, Dravnel sought to sell the photos, which were taken in a Philadelphia hotel suite where the couple trysted. That effort was met by a ferocious legal counterattack led by legendary L.A. attorney Bert Fields and his New York counterpart Judd Burstein.

De La Hoya’s lawyers even retained a purported photo expert who concluded, according to an e-mail obtained by TSG, that, “I would say that the most likely scenario was that Mr. De La Hoya's head (from various pictures) was composited onto the body of another male who was wearing the fishnet body stocking (and the wig).”

Specifically regarding two of the photos, the expert’s analysis supposedly revealed “various compositing anomalies involving irregular lighting and perspective inconsistencies” in one image, while “some irregularities in the pixel footprint in the head region indicating the significant likelihood of a composite in that area” were detected in the second photo.

For his part, De La Hoya also dismissed the pictures as Photoshopped fakes.

At one point, Dravnel became so intimidated by the De La Hoya assault she told a reporter that she could not “personally verify the authenticity of the images of Oscar De La Hoya.” Dravnel backtracked, she explained in a subsequent court filing, because the Golden Boy and his cohorts intimidated and threatened her “through various means” to tell the media that she could not vouch for the photos.

The lie was extracted from her, Dravnel added, even though De La Hoya knew the photos were real.

In June 2008, Dravnel settled a federal lawsuit she had brought against De La Hoya, though details of that deal were not filed with the court. Additionally, a source told TSG, the parties signed confidentiality agreements barring them from discussing settlement terms.

Pictured above (click to enlarge), Dravnel, now 26, works as a yoga instructor and recently operated her own studio in Brooklyn's Bensonhurst neighborhood.