COMANECI SAYS LIVE-IN IS MANAGER
Ft. Lauderdale News & Sun-Sentinel.
Published: Wednesday, December 13, 1989
Section: NEWS
Page: 6

``He`s not my loverboy, he`s my manager,`` Olympic gold medalist Nadia Comaneci said Tuesday from the Pompano Beach hotel room she has been sharing with a Florida roofer with whom she has been romantically linked for the last week.

Angrily denying reports of a whirlwind romance with Constantin Panait, Comaneci spoke over the telephone in halting English.

``This is not true. It is all a big lie, and you are very bad,`` Comaneci said. ``He (Panait) is just trying to help me. We are not lovers. Ask Constantin. He will tell you.``

And he did.

``There is no romance,`` Panait, 36, said quietly. ``I am just her manager. Only that. I am trying to help her make movies and commercials and maybe get a book of her life. That`s all.``

Comaneci, 28, and Panait arrived in New York City two weeks ago after the gymnast escaped from her native Romania with six other people Nov. 28.

At a Dec. 5 news conference at City Hall in Hollywood, Fla., Comaneci and Panait said they would be living together in south Florida. When asked whether they were romantically linked, Comaneci blushed.

She answered, ``So what?`` when asked whether she was aware that Panait was married and the father of four children.

That quote, which has cast Comaneci in an unfavorable light with much of the public and some potential advertisers, has been highlighted repeatedly by the media.

(On Tuesday, Comaneci told the New York Times that because of difficulty speaking and comprehending English, she had misunderstood the question.)

Comaneci and Panait have stayed in a single room at the Beachcomber Lodge and Villas since Dec. 5.

Panait still has not returned to the home in Hallandale, Fla., where he lived with his wife, Maria, 25, and their four children, ages 2 to 6.

``I don`t know when I will go back home,`` Panait said Tuesday. ``But Maria knows all of this; I have called her to explain everything. This is all not true about a romance.``

Mrs. Panait, who has not seen her husband since Nov. 2, seemed surprised and relieved.

``Really? That`s good news,`` she said. ``It sure makes me feel a lot better. But I will believe this about him being her manager when I hear it from him face to face when he comes home.``

Meanwhile, Comaneci and Panait have been seen around south Florida in a black 1990 Camaro convertible.

``Yes, she picked up the car on Saturday and paid $20,300 cash for it,`` said Maroone Chevrolet manager Ken Pataki. ``She really looked excited when one of our salesmen took her for a spin. She told us she was going to get a Florida driver`s license.``

Cathy Campbell, a Beachcomber bartender who befriended Comaneci and Panait, said: ``Right now, Nadia is like a kid in a candy store. She eats five times a day. She`ll order steak at 7 a.m. and shrimp scampi two hours later. She is having all the fun that she`s never had in her own country.``