Former Lover Kimberly Bell Says Bonds Once Admitted Steroid Use

During a decade-long relationship, baseball home-run king Barry Bonds once admitted using steroids, drugs which affected his sporting and sexual performance, his former lover said on Wednesday.

Kimberly Bell, 37, spoke to Reuters ahead of the Friday publication of a nude pictorial spread in Playboy in which she discusses a romance that started in 1994 and continued into Bonds' second marriage.

Her claim was made amid a continuing federal investigation into whether Bonds, who this season broke the Major League Baseball career home run record, lied to a federal grand jury about steroids.

Bonds, who played for 15 years with the San Francisco Giants, denies using steroids.

His attorney has said he told a grand jury investigating performance-enhancing drugs from the San Francisco area BALCO labs that he never knowingly used steroids.

Bell said she had testified to a separate grand jury looking into whether Bonds told the truth on steroids. She said Bonds, 43, spoke to her about using steroids to repair an elbow injury in the late 1990s.

"He had told me that that was what he was doing, that he was doing steroids in order to fix that, although he said that he felt that steroids are what caused the problem in the first place," said Bell.

"He felt that the reason why he had the injury in the first place was because using steroids causes your muscles and your tendons to grow faster than the joint itself can handle."

STEROIDS

Bell said that they did not discuss steroids again but said she had noticed Bonds acting in a secretive way with his personal trainer Greg Anderson.

Anderson, was convicted of steroid distribution in the BALCO case. He returned to prison last year when he refused to testify before the grand jury looking into Bonds.

"When it started, there was this secretive thing between him and Greg, him leaving the room with Greg, closing the door, have to quote unquote talk to him every morning at spring training, and go and lock the bedroom door," Bell said.

"I thought it was odd....He'd go pick up his little satchel bag and walk in there with Greg," she said.

Anderson has declined to discuss his work for Bonds, a childhood friend, either in public or with investigators.

Bell, who used to work as a graphic designer in the San Francisco area but now lives in Phoenix, Arizona, said steroids led to physical changes that only a lover would see, including occasional faltering sexual performance.

"He was embarrassed. As a woman I have never come across a man who has encountered this problem before," Bell said. "The few times that it occurred, the next time around he went and found himself some Viagra."

Bell said they broke up in 2003 after Bonds threatened her on occasion. She has sought a low profile since, but was enticed by a lucrative offer to pose nude for Playboy.