KYLIE AND HER MAN - THE TRUTH
He boasts of romance by telephone.. Pals tell of vanity & massive ego...He loves high life but he's not rich
THE new man in Kylie Minogue's life is a macho womaniser with a passion for dating celebrities.
Film director Alexander Dahm had flings with a Hollywood actress and a South American TV writer - then left them both heartbroken when he moved on.
And he has been openly boasting to friends about his blossoming friendship with pop starlet Kylie. Married father-of-one Dahm told a pal: "We have been having a telephone romance since we met."
He said Kylie originally wanted to visit him in his home of Mexico City. But he was worried that might upset his wife Laura Camacho, who is seven months pregnant.
So last week - four months after they met on a modelling shoot in Acapulco, Mexico - they holidayed together in the glitzy Chilean coastal resort of Vina del Mar.
"It's a place where he has taken many beautiful women before," said one ex-girlfriend, who asked not to be named. "Most women find it impossible to resist his charm. He makes a woman feel very special."
Last week the Sunday Mirror exclusively revealed the friendship between Kylie, 38, and Dahm, 39.
Our pictures showed Kylie - dumped by Frenchman Olivier Martinez in January - with a huge smile as Dahm collected her at the airport in Santiago.
They later enjoyed a romantic boat-trip and had a cosy seafood lunch with cocktails at the upmarket Chiringuito restaurant in the resort of Zapallar.
Meanwhile, lawyer Laura has been looking after the couple's three-year-old son Matias at the modest apartment they rent in Mexico City. Laura has shrugged off rumours of an affair between Kylie and Dahm, who both insist they are just friends.
Kylie even dismissed the idea of an affair as "offensive". In a statement, she said: "I have never been unfaithful to a partner and would find it completely immoral to be involved with a married man."
Pals of Dahm have revealed how the scorned women in Dahm's life include television writer Rosa Salazar Arenas, a household name in Mexico. Rosa, now 44, was reportedly devastated when he grew tired of their seven-year relationship.
Dahm, 39, earlier had a year-long relationship with internationally acclaimed singer and actress Maria Conchita Alonso. The Venezuelan star - who appeared in the Arnold Schwarzenegger blockbuster Running Man - was similarly smitten with the silver-haired film boss.
She would regularly fly down to Mexico City from her home in LA for passionate weekends.
The ex-girlfriend said: "Alex is very interested in status and celebrity. He does not have much money - but he loves to show off. When he was seeing Maria Conchita Alonso, he could not stop bragging about how he was hanging out with this famous woman. Now he is friends with Kylie, it is the same thing. He said Kylie was constantly speaking to him. They were having, to use his words, a 'telephone romance'.
"He got a bit nervous when Kylie said she wanted to visit him in Mexico City. He said he did not know what to do.
"But he was excited about it, like a little kid. Now the world has seen him hanging out with Kylie in Chile.
"And there was something strange about how they were pictured together. It was almost like Alex wanted people to see them.
"I am sure this friendship is going to cause no end of trouble in his life. But it will be fascinating to him.
"I think he will be getting a buzz out of all the attention. After all, until last week no one had a clue who he was. Now everyone knows his name - and everyone is talking about him. That cannot be bad for his career."
Chilean-born Dahm fled the country as a young boy with his mother Ximena, a leftwing writer, after she was persecuted by dictator Augusto Pinochet's regime.
The family had nothing when they first arrived in Mexico. But Ximena got a job with a local newspaper and saved enough money for her son to enter film school.
Since then, Dahm has enjoyed modest success as a director. He met Kylie in January when he was involved in an H&M swimwear shoot she was doing in Acapulco.
Dahm has numerous wealthy friends at Vina Del Mar and loves showing off at the town's fashionable restaurants. One friend said: "He loves music and he loves to cook. He's everything you could possibly want in a man - when he is there for you. The problem comes when Alex gets bored. He is very egotistical."
Sources close to Dahm say he shares a surprising number of traits with Martinez, who dated Kylie for three years.
One said: "He knows how good-looking he is and he takes pride in it. He also has a real eye for the ladies. When women are around, his head is constantly turning."
Dahm met wife Laura seven years ago when he began renting the apartment below hers in Mexico City. The relationship was a bitter blow to ex-girlfriend Rosa who, despite breaking up with him a year earlier, had not got over their separation.
One pal said: "Rosa was heartbroken and was not able to talk to Alex for a long time when she found out he was seeing Laura. When they first met in 1992, Alex was just a young kid, five years her junior. He had big dreams of being a film director, but he didn't have any money. Rosa was the breadwinner and he moved into her apartment.
"But their relationship was a very destructive one. They were both too fiery and too passionate. They would fight like cat and dog and really brought out the worst in each other. But Rosa was so in love with Alex. Things started going wrong when he started a film company, Malta Films, and his career began to take off. He worked long hours and he stopped being there for her emotionally.
"He became cold and distant and stopped answering her phone calls. In the end, she kicked him out of her house. But she was still so in love with him, it was not easy for her."
Dahm and Laura moved into the apartment they are currently renting in November 2003. But two years later, say friends, he packed his bags after a series of rows. The couple patched things up eight months later.
Last weekend, Laura told the Sunday Mirror it was a "coincidence" that Kylie and Dahm had met up. She said: "It does not bother me one bit that he is spending time with her.
A friend said: "Laura is a very traditional Mexican girl. But she is madly in love with him and they have one son and a second child on the way. There is no way she is going to leave him."
Dahm yesterday remained in Chile while Kylie flew to Washington to record material for her next album.
Sundaymirror
