If 1 gay & 1 straight live together, what's the big deal?: When Martina Navratilova hesitated to move in with basketball star Nancy Lieberman

Martina Navratilova once lived with former American basketball star Nancy Lieberman for several years, with Lieberman also donning the role of the tennis icon's physical trainer.

It was a wildly successful partnership, as Navratilova made a return to the WTA No. 1 ranking in 1982, just one year after starting working together with the former Dallas Diamonds star. Lieberman currently works as the coach in the WNBA as well as a broadcaster for the Oklahoma Thunders in the NBA.

However, Navratilova was initially hesitiant to move in with Lieberman, seeing as she did not want to "implicate" the American. The 18-time Grand Slam champion had just come out of the closet at that point, and did not want the press to speculate whether Lieberman was gay as well because of the moving in.

"I don't know if I should move in with Nancy because I don't want to implicate her. It's so silly -- guilt by association," Martina Navratilova said in an interview with the Dallas Morning News.

The former World No. 1 could not understand why it was such a big deal for a gay person and a straight person to live together, when two guys or gays could live together all the time without anyone batting an eyelid.

"If two gays live together, nobody thinks anything. If two guys live together, they don't either... We have one gay and one straight -- what's the big deal? I like men -- I guess I'm bi(sexual). I like both. I just have a better time with women, straight or gay, basically because I don't have to go to bed with them," Martina Navratilova said.

"People look at Martina Navratilova like a dollar bill" - Nancy Lieberman

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Nancy Lieberman, on the other hand, joked that she wanted to remove Martina Navratilova from her lesbian environment and give her a space where she could be free outside her own comfort zone.

The basketball star was also very sympathetic towards Navratilova, stating that people had taken advantage of her friend a lot and that they often looked at her like she was a "dollar bill."

"I'm not saying it (lesbianism) is wrong but I want to give her a fair chance of changing and seeing the other side. I'm not here to force guys on her but just to help her get out of that (lesbian) environment."

"If you don't know anything else, you can't give it a chance. She's been taken so much advantage of. People look at her like a dollar bill. I don't need her as a friend for her money or her name and I'm probably the first person able to say that," Martina Navratilova said.