Reinhold Messner: His Diane “saved” him

Reinhold Messner is about to celebrate a big birthday: the mountaineering legend will turn 80 on September 17. “A nice number,” says Messner in an interview with the magazine “Bunte”. But he doesn’t feel that old yet – and that is mainly due to the woman at his side. Since May 2021, he has been married for the third time to Diane (43). She is his “fountain of youth,” Messner enthuses. “We are something like a rope team of love, for the first time I feel supported in it.”

Diane supported Reinhold Messner after his separation

She also stood by him during a difficult phase: after his separation from his ex-wife Sabine Stehle, with whom he has three children. When Diane Messner met her current husband, he was “battered and shaken,” said the 43-year-old in an interview with “Bunte.” “Not broken, but crushed, bent, angry and hurt,” she added. “He had no reason to separate. Why now, at 74? Now, when he had time for his family. He was plagued by terrible nightmares at the time.” Things are different now: “Today, Reinhold sleeps peacefully next to me,” explains Diane Messner.

“It took a while,” admits Reinhold Messner. He felt “discarded” and did not understand the separation. “At first I had no idea how things were going to continue.” But he also admits that he made mistakes: “Of course I wasn’t there that often – expeditions, training, lectures. But for many years I tried to offer my wife and our children everything.” Looking back, the time together and communication were missing, says Messner. “A failure on both sides, until there was only silence.”

Things are different with his new wife: “Despite the age difference, which we don’t even notice, we have a common language,” says the 79-year-old. “Diane inspires me.” The 43-year-old adds: “We are on the same level. And we talk about everything. We only remain silent on the mountain.”

“Diane saved me”

Reinhold Messner announced his separation from his second wife in August 2019. The two were together for many years and tied the knot in 2009. A few years later, the extreme mountaineer made it public that his relationship with his children had been strained since the separation. Among other things, there was a dispute over inheritance matters; Messner claims to have left his fortune to his children before the separation.

But he is not bitter: “I don’t want to waste the rest of my life fighting in court. The wound remains, but it no longer bleeds. Only the scar still hurts,” said the mountaineer. He knows today that the pain of his family’s separation also had something good about it: it was the only way he finally met Diane. She “saved” him when he had already come to terms with “being alone in old age.”