The Truth about Frida Kahlo

Summary

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Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society

Episode: The Truth about Frida Kahlo

Host: Dr. Kate Lister
Guest: Patience Schell, Professor and Chair in Hispanic Studies, University of Aberdeen
Date: February 13, 2026

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Main Theme

This episode delves into the true story of Frida Kahlo, the iconic Mexican artist whose life was marked by pain, passion, defiance, and scandal. Host Dr. Kate Lister and guest Patience Schell explore how Kahlo’s body, trauma, sexuality, and uncompromising self-expression made her a revolutionary figure in art, feminism, and cultural identity. The discussion moves beyond the commercialized icon to reveal a complex, powerful woman who lived and loved on her own terms.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Frida Kahlo’s Origins and Early Life

• Birth and Heritage: Frida was born in Coyacán, then a small town at the edge of Mexico City, to Guillermo Kahlo—a Hungarian-German immigrant and photographer—and Matilda Calderón, a mestiza (of indigenous and Spanish ancestry). (06:54)
• Family Dynamics: Frida was especially close to her father, who encouraged her in sports like wrestling and football to combat the effects of childhood polio. Her mother was a devout Catholic with more traditional expectations. (07:41)
• Historical Backdrop: Kahlo’s youth was shaped by the Mexican Revolution, a turbulent era that radically altered Mexican society and politics. (09:02)

“She was at the forefront here…at a very prestigious school with about 2,000 students, about 30 of whom were girls.” (11:20, Patience Schell)

2. Childhood Illness and Catastrophic Accident

• Polio at Age 7: Left her bedridden for nine months, resulting in a lifelong limp and sensitivity about her right leg. (08:05–11:06)
• Devastating Bus Accident: At 18, a bus crash impaled her with a handrail, causing multiple severe injuries (fractured spine, pelvis, foot, and more). This traumatic event became a physical and creative turning point.

“She was impaled with a handrail…went through her left hip and came out her vagina. She says she'd lost her virginity in that moment.” (11:56, Patience Schell)

• Recovery and Birth of the Artist: Bedridden for months, she began painting self-portraits, forging her unique style without formal training. (12:44–15:03)

3. Frida’s Self-Image and Signature Aesthetic

• Self-Portraits: Assertive, direct gaze, unashamed monobrow and mustache, vivid colors, and frequent references to Mexican folklore and identity. (05:50–06:22)
• Integration into Pop Culture: Frida’s unmistakable appearance—her "eyebrows"—has become globally recognized, yet her story is often misunderstood or oversimplified. (04:50–05:10)

“She gazes at the viewer with a really direct look. She's assertive, she's strong, she's unabashed. It's a very Mexican aesthetic.” (05:50, Patience Schell)

4. Relationship and Marriage with Diego Rivera

• Meeting the Artist: Initially approached Diego for feedback on her art, not romance, but their connection became central to her life. (19:40–21:30)
• The Turbulent Union: Marriage (she was 22, he was 20 years older), characterized by mutual artistic respect, profound emotional highs and lows, and frequent infidelities by both.

"I cannot speak of Diego as my husband because that term, when applied to him, is an absurdity...he transcends by far the domain of sex." (23:40, Frida Kahlo, as read by Patience Schell)

• Their Non-Conventional Arrangement: Both had extramarital relationships; discussed openly. Particular hurt caused by Diego’s affair with Frida's beloved younger sister, Cristina. (22:25–43:37)
• Temporary Divorce and Remarriage: The couple divorced for a year after Diego’s betrayal but soon reunited with new rules: financial independence and, reportedly, abstinence from sex. (43:39–45:17)

“Frida gave him three conditions on getting back together: cover her own expenses, he’d pay his half, and they wouldn’t have sex.” (44:32, Patience Schell)

5. Frida’s Sexuality and Love Life

• Affairs with Men & Women: Frida had relationships with men—including Leon Trotsky, Nick Murray, Isamu Noguchi—and women such as Maria Felix, Dolores del Río, and possibly Josephine Baker and Chavela Vargas. (26:36–29:23)
• Sexual Fluidity and Gender Play: Frida openly challenged gender norms, dressing in men's suits, highlighting androgyny in her art, and exploring same-sex desire, though biographical details are sometimes speculative.

“Juan O'Gorman, who knew both of them, described her as ambisexual...she loved love.” (31:19, Patience Schell)

• Context & Caution: Modern terms like "bisexual" may not fully capture her self-understanding or the cultural context in which she lived. (32:00–32:07)

6. Health Complications and Motherhood

• Ongoing Illness: Multiple surgeries (25–32), chronic pain, and eventually, leg amputation due to gangrene. Regular use of painkillers and alcohol to manage suffering. (37:42–42:08)
• Fertility & Abortion: Had several pregnancies, at least three abortions (some induced, some for medical reasons). The popular myth of her desperation for children is challenged; letters suggest ambivalence and pragmatism. (38:36–40:44)

“She never had children. The idea that Frida was somehow desperate, desperate, desperate to have Diego’s baby…That’s not correct.” (40:33, Patience Schell)

7. Later Years, Death, and Legacy

• Final Decline: In her last years, Frida’s health deteriorated severely—spinal injuries, leg amputation, lost fine motor skills, and inability to paint contributed to depression and possible suicide. (45:55–48:22)

“The last written entry in her diary was, ‘I hope the end is beautiful, and I hope never to come back.’” (47:51, Patience Schell)

• Death at 47: Official cause was poor health, but strong suspicions of suicide. (48:14)

“I suspect if it wasn't deliberate deliberate, it was a little bit allowing too much to be.” (48:24, Patience Schell)

• Recognition in Her Lifetime: Kahlo was respected and noticed within her lifetime—especially in artistic circles—but her fame soared posthumously. (15:48–16:54)
• Did She Know Her Worth? The episode ends with a reflection on whether Frida realized what an important and revolutionary artist she was. Both host and guest hope she did. (50:01–50:41)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “She became this kind of can’t be defeated figure who people loved spending time with...she was fun, she was funny.” (14:22, Patience Schell)
• “If you’re gonna cheat, cheat big!" (28:01, Kate Lister)
• “Historians are always getting in trouble for saying that everyone was just friends.” (30:38, Kate Lister)
• “She gazes at the viewer with a really direct look. She's assertive, she's strong, she's unabashed.” (05:50, Patience Schell)
• “When you see him [Diego Rivera] naked, his skin is kind of green tinged…although his masculine virility, specific and strange, would have made him equally desired in the lands of these queens avidly hungering for masculine love.” (23:40, Frida Kahlo via Patience Schell)

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Segment Timestamps

• Intro to Frida Kahlo and Origins: 03:30 – 06:54
• Illness, Accident, & Becoming an Artist: 07:41 – 15:09
• Marriage to Diego Rivera: 19:27 – 25:24
• Their Affairs & Frida’s Sexuality: 26:30 – 34:19
• Gender Presentation and Artistic Identity: 32:07 – 37:30
• Health Struggles & Motherhood: 37:42 – 42:08
• Diego’s Affair with Her Sister & Divorce/Remarriage: 42:23 – 45:17
• Frida’s Last Years, Death, and Reflection on Her Genius: 45:55 – 50:41

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Tone and Takeaway

The episode is frank, witty, and unflinching—much like its subject. Kate Lister and Patience Schell combine rigorous historical detail with a conversational style, celebrating the messy, inspiring reality of Frida’s sexuality, relationships, pain, and defiance. Listeners walk away with a deeper, more nuanced sense of Kahlo’s legacy—not as a cliché or decorative icon, but as a radical, resilient individual who lived outrageously and left a lasting mark on art and society.

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Transcript

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[D]

Hello my lovely betwixters. It's me, Kate Lister and you are listening to Betwixt the Sheets. Before we can go any further, I do have to tell you Yep, it's the fair dues warning. This is an adult podcast spoken by adults to other adults about adulty things in an adulty way, covering a range adult subjects. And you should be an adult too. Just Someone on social media recently asked me if we reuse the fair dues warnings or if I do it originally every single time. And I After almost 400 episodes, I'm rather embarrassed to say it never actually occurred to me that we could just reuse them. No, I really do do a different one every single time and well, we've started now, so we'll just keep doing it. Anyway, enjoy the show. We're in Mexico City in 1925 and a young Frida Kahlo is about to board a bus in a few moments and a catastrophic accident will change her life forever. The woman she becomes is in many ways because of this shockingly violent moment, her relationship with her body, her sexuality and, of course, her art can all be said to start right here in the wreckage of this crash. For the rest of her life, Frida Kahlo will refuse to be modest about pain or polite about desire. She'll turn her own body into a canvas, staring back at the world on her own terms. She is a fascinating, complex woman who we've been long overdue getting to know on this show. So this is the truth about Frida Kahlo.

[C]

Foreign.

[D]

Welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex scandal in society, with me, Kate Lister. Frida Kahlo is an icon of art and feminism, not to mention Mexico. Her image is reproduced everywhere, but her story is also one of suffering, defiance and scandal. Joining me today to help us get to know this incredible artist is the wonderful patient, Shell Chair in Hispanic Studies at the University of Aberdeen. And whilst I'm here, I wanted to let you know again about the two Betwixt the Sheets live shows that are happening in May. We've got one in Edinburgh and we have got one in London town. Tickets are [e-mail] just search for Betwixt the sheets and we will see you there. Right, without further ado, let's do it. Hello and welcome to Betwixt the Sheets. It's only patient Shell. How are you doing?

[C]

Oh, I'm great. It's so nice to be with you, Kate.

[D]

It's so nice to meet you. And you know, this is such a requested episode and it's honestly embarrassing. We haven't done it before. Frida Kahlo, what a woman.

[C]

I know. Amazing, huh?

[D]

Absolutely incredible. Probably one of Mexican's best known artists.

[C]

Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, I would say so. Absolutely, definitely.

[D]

And if anyone's listening and you don't know who she is, you do know who she is. Go give her a Google and then you'll go, oh, I do that.

[C]

She's the one with the eyebrows.

[D]

She's the one with the eyebrows. Right. How long have you studied Frida Kahlo? Known about Frida Kahlo? When did you first encounter her? Do you remember?

[C]

Yes. I went to the Mexico Splendors of 30 Centuries exhibition, which was at the New York Metropolitan Museum in 1991, if I'm remembering correctly. And some of her work was featured. And I, being a young person who was quick to become a fan, I bought one of her posters and it was on my wall for years. So, yeah, it was the portrait of Frida in a Tejuana outfit. With the wonderful lace around her face and the small portrait of Diego on her forehead. And it's sometimes called Diego on my mind. Diego, obviously being her husband, Diego Rivera.

[D]

But her work is. How would you even describe it if somebody hasn't seen it? How would you describe Frida Kahlo's work?

[C]

Frida Kahlo's work is best known for the self portraits, and she emphasizes her monobrow, which we've already ment, and she does not hide her mustache. And she gazes at the viewer with a really direct look. She's assertive, she's strong, she's unabashed. It's a very Mexican aesthetic. She's very interested in pre Columbian art and Mexican traditions. But, yeah, these vivid self portraits. Vivid colors.

[D]

Lots of colors.

[C]

Lots of colors, yeah.

[D]

I don't actually know an awful lot about her life, which is a terrible thing to say considering that because she's so iconic and images of her are iconic, they've done that thing that have kind of. It's slipped into popular culture in a way that, like, Andy Warhol's work on Marilyn Monroe has done, like, those kind of images. They're. They're everywhere. They're on posters of people's dormitories, but they might not even know who it is. Her work has done that, but I don't know very much about who she actually was. So what's her origin story? Can you tell us a bit about who her family were and where she grew up?

[C]

Yes, definitely. Frida Kahlo was born in Coyukan, which is now part of southern Mexico City, but at the time, it was a separate little town in the south of Mexico City. Her father was Guillermo Carlo, who was a Hungarian German immigrant to Mexico, and he was a photographer. And her mother was Matilda Calderon. She was a Catholic woman of mestiza background, which means she was mixed indigenous and Spanish ancestry.

[D]

There's a clashing of cultures.

[C]

But Guillermo had previously been married, and he had two daughters from that marriage, and then he married Mathilde. And Frida had two older sisters and one younger sister, and she grew up in the family house in Coyacan.

[D]

Was it a happy childhood home?

[C]

It was a fairly happy childhood home. She was very much her daddy's girl. Her mom was a strict Catholic woman. She became ill in 1914, so she's born in 1907, although later she claims it was 1910. We can talk about why on another moment. But when she was about 7, she got polio, and she was bedbound for nine months.

[D]

Wow.

[C]

Yeah, yeah. A really big thing for a little kid. And one of her legs, her right leg ended up shorter than her left leg and not quite as strong. And her father really encouraged her to be very sporty to try and compensate for this. So this was unusual for a Mexican child girl in the period, but her father encouraged her in wrestling, in football and swimming, so she was a bit of a tomboy.

[D]

What was her relationship with her mother? Like? You said that she was very strictly Catholic. Was she okay with Frida being encouraged to go and wrestle people?

[C]

She expected more traditional things from her daughter. Yeah, but they're very loving, you know, loving relationship. But, yes, much more traditional expectations. But she was born in a different world, and the world was really changing. And Frida Kahlo. Frida Kahlo embraced those changes and epitomized them in some ways.

[D]

In what way was it changing? Give us a sense of what you mean by.

[C]

Well, in Mathilde's youth and adulthood, Mexico had been ruled by Porfirio Diaz, who was a dictator. He ruled from 1876 until 1910. And in 1910, the Mexican Revolution broke out, overthrowing Diaz and the revolutionaries. There were lots of different factions, and they had different goals and demands, ranging from wanting. Wanting the vote to be respected, because Diaz regularly had held elections and he'd regularly won them. So they wanted the vote to be respected, and they wanted people not to be allowed to stand for reelection, like Diaz had done for years. But others wanted more radical change. They wanted rights for workers. They wanted redistribution of land. That was one of the changes that had happened under Diaz was the concentration of land and its removal, particularly from indigenous villages. So there were a lot of social demands and changes coming out of the Mexican revolution. And in 1917, a new constitution was written, which was the most radical constitution of its time.

[D]

Wow. So there's a lot of stuff going on.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

In the background, then.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[D]

What about. Actually, before I get onto that, can we talk about how this polio impacted her? Because, you know, thanks to vaccines, this is something that we don't have to. To deal with. They've eradicated polio, hopefully. But what did it mean for Frida when she contracted polio?

[C]

Well, as I say, it meant, for one thing, nine months in bed. So it meant this period of convalescence and recuperation, which is very hard for a little kid. Anyone, of course, but a little kid particularly. As you can imagine, she also became sensitive about her right leg and the damage, the visible damage to the right leg. So that was something that she you know, tried to sort of COVID up, and I think possibly she compensated, as they say, in these sporting and attempts to really prove herself. Prove herself capable.

[D]

Was her right leg noticeably affected by the.

[C]

Yes, she walked with a leg.

[D]

Okay, okay. So it's quite. It's had quite a severe impact on her body then.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[D]

What about her love of art? Where does that come from? So you mentioned that her dad is a photographer. Was that the influence?

[C]

Yes, there was certainly that. There was certainly that. And she had another terrible health crisis, which is when she was 18. She was in a really traumatic accident at that point. She was attending high school in Mexico City, a very prestigious school with about 2,000 students, about 30 of whom were girls. So it was really, you know, she was at the forefront here. And she was coming home on the bus with her boyfriend at the time, and the bus and a trolley collided, and in that collision, she was impaled with a handrail.

[D]

Oh, my God.

[C]

Which went through her left hip and came out her vagina. And she says she'd lost her virginity in that moment.

[D]

Holy hell.

[C]

Her vertebrae was fractured. She had three fractures of her pelvis. She had 11 in her right foot. So it was huge, huge physical damage. And it's also described that in the course of the accident, her clothing was torn off, and there was an artist traveling on one of the vehicles who had this kind of. Of gold sprinkles, gold powder, which fell over her. So she was this bloody, injured woman covered in gold. So really dramatic and dramatic visually, in any case. So the recuperation from that accident took a lot of time. A lot of time. And that's also where she started to paint. Because she was bedbound. It was something she could do.

[D]

What was that recovery like? Those sound like catastrophic injury.

[C]

Yeah, well, Diego Rivera, her husband later on, says that only five people survived the accident. Now, that's what he said. I've not verified this independently, but, yeah, it was a terrible, terrible accident. And it really is amazing that she survived. And she survived as well as she did because she recovered her mobility. Diego Rivera recounts the first time he met her at her house. She was in a tree, you know, so she did recover her mobility enough to be able to climb a tree. But, yes, it was a difficult recovery that took her quite a long time.

[D]

Was she able to finish school if she was recovered? Did she go back to school?

[C]

No, she didn't go back to school.

[D]

God almighty. So presumably then she must. She must have gone back home dealing with those injuries.

[C]

Yes. Yeah, well, she was in the hospital for a period. I'm trying to think. She was in the hospital for about a month and then went home. And neither of her parents rushed to see her in hospital. This is one of the things that's noticed. Her sister, her elder sister Matilde was the one who went to hospital.

[D]

That's weird.

[C]

Yeah, it does raise questions.

[D]

Why do you think? I know that we weren't there, but if you had to hazard a guess. That's odd. Like your daughter's been impaled in a bus, in a bus crash and you don't go and see her.

[C]

The suggestion is that the parents were too upset.

[D]

Oh, okay.

[C]

But, okay, I, I, you know, what can we say? It is strange.

[D]

It's strange. We can say it's strange.

[C]

It's strange her elder sister was there taking care of her.

[D]

Do we know how Frieda herself responded to this? Because this sounds like one of those life altering moments.

[C]

Yes, it seems like she remade herself in terms of her personality, or maybe it's better to say it consolidated who she was heading towards becoming. So she made herself into this outgoing, outrageous, witty life of the party. Little bit bad, little bit naughty, little bit drink too much, a little bit swear woman. She became this kind of can't be defeated figure who people loved spending time with. You know, she was fun, she was funny.

[D]

Okay, I can see that. I could see. And it was at this point that she started doing art when she was recovering. Had she been doing art before that?

[C]

To be honest, I've not seen anybody say she'd been doing art before that.

[D]

Okay, what kind of art was she producing in her early days?

[C]

Well, the first finished portrait, which she gave to her boyfriend, who I mentioned that then boyfriend, who I mentioned earlier, was a self portrait. And she was an elegant young woman in a velvet dress. There's a kind of directness to her painting, which you see from that very first self portrait. She was also, you know, she wasn't trained. So there's. People describe her as self trained and kind of having a learn as she went style.

[D]

There's something wild about it as well.

[C]

Yeah. And I think that becomes more the case as the art goes on. But yes, there's a lot of energy in it. There's a lot of.

[D]

That's a good word. Energy.

[C]

Yes. Yeah. Like you feel like she's got step out of the painting and start talking to you.

[D]

You really do, don't you? When does she start getting noticed? Was she an undiscovered genius in her lifetime? And it was only after Death that we all went, oh, she was very good.

[C]

Really? Yes and no. She starts getting noticed. So she and Diego Rivera got married in 1929, and in 1930, they went to the United States, and that was for him to do these various commissions that he had. And they stayed there for three years. And so in the United States, she started doing some paper painting. She started getting noticed, although she was noticed as much for her clothing initially as anything else, because she was wearing traditional Mexican dress. She'd started wearing Tejuana costume. Tejuana traditional dress, which comes from the Isthmus of Tuantepec in Oaxaca. And this is clothing that's actually a fusion of Spanish and indigenous styles. It's a loose blouse, often embroidered, and a long skirt, often with lace on it, and sometimes a headdress with that lace, as I mentioned, but doesn't have to be. But she was wearing this in San Francisco.

[D]

Yeah, that would get you noticed.

[C]

Getting noticed. Yeah, getting noticed. But for her first show, the first public showing of one of her paintings was at the 6th Annual Exhibition of the San Francisco Society of women artists in 1931. And that was her wedding portrait that she'd done. Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.

[D]

I'll be back with Patience and Frida after this short break.

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[D]

Well, we're gonna have to talk about Diego then, aren't we? As much as I'd love to do this and go, oh, screw him, we'll just focus on Frida. I don't think we can do that. So who is he and how did they meet?

[C]

Okay. Diego de Veda was one of the big names in Mexican art at the time.

[D]

He's a big shot, isn't he? Everyone's heard of him.

[C]

He's like a rock star. I mean, in his time, he was a huge figure, and he was literally quite big as well. He's a big, tall, fat man. He's self described. They met initially, saw each other, shall we say, when he was painting a mural at her Preparatoria Nacional, the national preparatory school in Mexico City. And he remembers her watching him, watching him paint. He remembers thinking she was little more than a child, but at that point, she was a teenager. Her interest in him and the painting was enough that his wife, common law wife at the time, was quite annoyed with Frida hanging about. Oh, yes, yes. But Frida was not. She was not, shall we say, a gorgeous figure of sexual threat at that moment. She was just. There was a kind of intensity about her. And then they re met when she had taken up painting after the accident, and I didn't mention earlier, but before the accident, she was planning on becoming a medical doctor. And one of the reasons to do this was to help her family financially after the accident. And she couldn't do that anymore. She wanted to earn a living from painting. And the family also had a lot of medical bills because of her injuries, so there were some financial concerns. So the story is that she took her artwork to Diego Rivera when he was involved painting another mural and basically said to him, what do you think? Is this good enough? Can I make a living? And she was not approaching him in a romantic way or anything. She really wanted his professional opinion on her art.

[D]

And he heard, would you like to see my penis? Is that what happened?

[C]

He heard that pretty much with any woman. I mean, Diego was incorrigible, tale as old as time.

[D]

So he's a bit of a womanizer, then?

[C]

Yes, with A capital W, if we can do that.

[D]

But he had a common law wife, did you say?

[C]

Yes, Lupe Marin, who was his wife at the time. And they had married in the church, but they hadn't done a civil ceremony, so that meant it wasn't legally binding. And they had two kids and two daughters. And he left her and took up with Tina Modati, who was a photographer. A communist Italian photographer. Yes. He had a track record of leaving women when they got pregnant or had his kids.

[D]

Oh, that's not a good look, is it? That's.

[C]

No.

[D]

All right, so what do you think, then? That young? I'm assuming she was young when they met.

[C]

Yeah, she was 22 when they got married, and he was about 20 years old. Her.

[D]

It's. So we've heard this story before. Okay. What do you think that the attraction was then, for Frida?

[C]

I think it was the art.

[D]

The genius.

[C]

I think it was the genius, Yeah. I mean, she talks about him. I've got quotes from her about him as a physical body. If you want to hear more about that, I can give you that. Okay. Should we start? Shall we go there? Okay. So this is after she was his wife. But she says, I cannot speak of Diego as my husband because that term, when applied to him, is an absurdity. He has never been, nor will he ever be anybody's husband. I cannot speak of him as my lover because to me, he transcends by far the domain of sex. And then she goes on to describe his body, talking about how he's got these eyes like a frog, that are separated and give him this wacky broad vision. And she talks about when you see him naked, his skin is kind of green tinged. Okay, she goes on. This is. I have to say, I think this is my favorite bit, Diego's chest of it. We have to say that had he landed on an island governed by Sappho, where male invaders were apt to be executed, Diego would never have been in danger. The sensitivity of his marvelous breasts would have ensured his welcome, although his masculine virility, specific and strange, would have made him equally desired in the lands of these queens avidly hungering for masculine love.

[D]

Oh, I'm confused. Frida, what is going on here? He sounds repugnant from what she's saying. Yeah, but also, she can't help herself.

[C]

Yeah. And when you look at pictures of him, you think, this is not an attractive man. Why was this man basically a sex symbol in his time?

[D]

He's got something going on, then.

[C]

He's got something going on. He was clearly charismatic, appealing. Yeah. Women. Women were drawn to him. It was said around this period, so 1920s, that the young US tourists who went to Mexico to experience life had to have a little visit with Diego as part of that experience. Oh, God.

[D]

Wow. Okay.

[C]

He is.

[D]

He is a boy and a half.

[C]

Yeah. Yeah, pretty much.

[D]

So, Frida, it sounds like she knows what she's getting herself into here. This doesn't sound like a young, naive woman who is like, oh, I married him, and then he turned out to be an absolute scoundrel.

[C]

No. Well, she certainly knew what she was getting into, whether she thought things would be possible. Oh, no.

[D]

She thought she could save him. Oh, we all do that.

[C]

I mean, we don't know. Right? We don't know.

[D]

All right, we don't know.

[C]

But she knew who she was marrying. You do see in those early years of marriage, some concern about leaving him alone for long periods of time. So, you know, maybe concern about what he'd get up to. Although he managed to get up to stuff when he wasn't alone for long periods of time, so he didn't need an excuse.

[D]

I was gonna ask you, was she right to be concerned? What was.

[C]

Yes.

[D]

What was this marriage like then?

[C]

It was tempestuous, and it was loving, and it was. I'm gonna say there was respect for each other as artists, you know, not the kind of respect one might think of in a relationship where there's not so much cheating, but they certainly had a great respect for each other as artists. And he really thought she was spectacular as an artist. You know, there's no doubt that he was impressed by her work and supportive of her as an artist. What else to say? They're non conventional. Neither wanted to be conventional. So I think his cheating hurt, and I think her cheating with men hurt him, but at the same time, they were not subscribers to bourgeois morality. They were much freer than that. And, you know, this is the 1920s. It's the Mexican Revolution has loosened up sexual mores, and they were both enjoying that.

[D]

So she is having affairs as well. Do we know who she's having affairs with?

[C]

Yes, there is a long list. And both of them really seem to. Well, I had to slightly backtrack. There's a point in his autobiography where he says Frida was most mostly angry. I paraphrase. Right. But Frida was basically angry with me when I had affairs with women who she didn't respect.

[D]

Well, that's an interesting caveat. Okay. It's like a kind of, you could have done better sort of Exactly.

[C]

Now, whether that's true or not, that might be self justification. But if we look at some of the figures she slept with, these are extraordinary men. You know, she's really, really interesting artists, creative people. Trotsky. Leon Trotsky was one of the men.

[D]

Yeah, I didn't know that. So give me some other people that are on her body count list, then. Trotsky. I didn't expect that one.

[C]

Yes. So we've got Trotsky, we've got Nick Murray, who was a Hungarian photographer. And it seems like I've read different things about how long the relationship lasts, but One source suggests 10 years, that they were in a relationship for 10 years. And some scholars suggest that she actually, had he been willing to marry her, perhaps she might have married him. There's also. Isama Noguchi, who was in Mexico on a Guggenheim, is another man she had an affair with. So there is. Quite. So she's not slumming it.

[D]

She's not.

[C]

She's.

[D]

I kind of like this idea of, like, if you're gonna cheat, cheat big. Like, you know, don't. Don't be just with anybody. It has to be with somebody who's at least interested.

[C]

Yeah, absolutely. I think for both of them, you see. Well, maybe not so much for Diego. I think Diego would sleep with a lot of women who perhaps did not stimulate his mind.

[D]

Fair.

[C]

But you think he preferred to sleep with women who stimulated his mind as well as his body. Frida, though, it does seem like she's going for men who were really going to give her something intellectually, artistically, challenge her in some way. Yeah.

[D]

Wow. And she also had relationships with women, didn't she?

[C]

Yes. Yes, she did. There is debate about this. Not as much is known about her relationships with women, and some scholars suggest that this is basically the heteronormative focus of the literature on Kahlo. She definitely had really intense friendships with women. So sometimes it's hard to tell where. Whether we're looking at a sexual relationship or a very intense friendship. But names that have been suggested are Maria Felix and Dolores del Rio, who are Mexican actors, also lovers of Diego. Also suggested maybe Josephine Baker. Yeah, I've heard that one. Maybe Chavela Vargas, Tallulah Bankhead.

[D]

Was that somebody there as well?

[C]

Chavella Vargas, a Costa Rican singer. I've also heard suggested Jacqueline Lamba, who was the wife of Andre Breton. And I have a section from Kahlo's diary. She started this diary in 1944 and kept it until her death. And when we say Diary, it's not like, dear Diary, today I slept with.

[D]

X, Y and Z.

[C]

Would that she had wood that she had. No, it's a combination of kind of musings, stream of consciousness and lots of imagery, lots of paintings. But in any case, I mentioned Jacqueline Lamba, who was married to Andre Breton. And in her diary, she remembers a visit that they had had some years before. And she writes in her diary, I have not forgotten you. The nights are long and difficult. The water, the ship and the parting which made you appear so small in my eyes Framed in that round porthole as you gazing as me so as to keep me in your heart.

[D]

That's pretty spicy. That's pretty hot stuff.

[C]

It does suggest a loving, romantic connection to me.

[D]

Difficult with this stuff, with historians. And historians are always getting in trouble for saying that everyone was just friends. That's a comedic meme that still does the round. You can have two men in bed together, completely nude, and historians would still be going. But it's because we want to be cautious, because we need the evidence to be there. And what you get, especially when you're looking at history of marginalized groups of people, is the slightest hint that they may have been gay or bisexual or trans and people that it becomes really important to us, culturally important. So we focus in it. And we want them. We want Frida Kahlo to be a bisexual queen. But we've gotta be a bit careful with the evidence we do.

[C]

And I mean, I think she did have sexual relationships with women as well as men. That's what I believe. And I think using our labels isn't always helpful. Yes, because I think we have to understand her in her time. Juan o', Gorman, who was an architect and muralist and knew both of them, he described her as ambisexual and said that she loved love and that she loved animals, she loved her friends, she loved family. So it was how kind of she expressed love. So I think that's an interesting way to look at it.

[D]

Is.

[C]

It's not perhaps. I'm not suggesting for a minute she a gay or queer idol.

[D]

No, no.

[C]

I mean, it's terrific. That's wonderful. But I think she, in so many ways, she transcends the labels which Ryan put on her.

[D]

I think she does, too. Do we have anything in her own right? I mean, apart from the letters, do we have anything to try and understand how she understood her sexuality or who she was attracted to?

[C]

That's a really interesting question.

[D]

When there's the artwork, does she explore.

[C]

It in the art yes, there is a painting of two nude women. Now I'm doing this from memory. Two nude women in an embrace in a naturalistic setting. And one of the women is lighter skinned and one of the women is darker skinned. And that has been read as a kind of erotic moment. And it's certainly an interracial relationship. So that's a very interesting one. The diary which I mentioned, which has been published in the commentary on the diary and I agree with this, it said that the images of naked women in the diary, they're not sexualized, so they're not depicted as sexual objects. It's a gentle and a kind gaze, but it's not a lustful gaze on these women. But at the same time, I mean, there's a story about her playing this surrealist pictograph game where you kind of fold the paper down and add in and body parts and then you open it up and what do you have? And Frida Kahlo seemed to delight in giving women erect penises that were ejaculating and these kinds of things. So she's very playing around with gender norms and sexuality. And you know, we see her in the paintings not hiding her mustache. There are moments in her life where she dressed in suits. So there's a wonderful family portrait when she's about 18 and everybody's looking fairly traditional. And then there's Frida in quite a dapper suit with slicked back hair. There's a portrait of her self portrait where she's sitting in a chair in a suit and she's cut off all her hair and it's all strewn around her. So playing with kind of androgyny and certainly a very different look from her Tijuana lace and long skirts.

[D]

I'll be back with patience and Frida after this short break.

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Delivery fees may apply. How did people react to this at the time? Because, I mean, even today, it can be quite striking. You look at some of her artwork and you can see in these images that, like, that person looks very different from everyone else in this picture. But how did people react to this in early 20th century Mexico?

[C]

Well, she wasn't the only woman dressing in folkloric and indigenous costume dress. I shouldn't say costume dress, who wasn't of that culture. So in the 1920s, after the Mexican Revolution, one of the big changes was a revalorization of Mexican culture, folkloric culture, rural culture, historic indigenous culture. And so these symbols started to be used as a kind of expression of national cultural identity. And we see some of this in Diego's work as well, Diego Rivera's work. So this sense that Mexico should look to its own cultural tradition to try and represent itself. And part of that for some women and in some other environments was wearing Mexican traditional and folkloric dress. So Frida Kahlo was not the only one dressing this way. I was looking for these because I thought they'd be fun to have to hand. And I can't find them, unfortunately. But I have somewhere reproductions from a cigarette company's advertisements in the 1920s. And they're also women in traditional Mexican dress smoking.

[D]

Wow.

[C]

So, you know, celebrity women dressed up with shawls and with these lovely embroidered blouses, smoking. So it was a kind of revolutionary stance almost wearing these clothes. But as I say, when you wear them in San Francisco or Detroit, you know, it's a different matter.

[D]

Yes, yes. How did her health hold up throughout. Throughout her life? I mean, somebody that's been through that much physical trauma, it must have had a lasting impact on it.

[C]

Yeah, she ended up having. And again, I've seen different numbers here, how many operations she ended up having over the course of her lifetime because of the complications around the injuries from the accident and also some of the complications because of the polio that she ended up having these ulcers in her leg. The figures I've seen range from about 25 to 32 different operations.

[D]

Oh, wow.

[C]

So. And operations on her spine, operations on her foot. She had her appendix out. We can also talk about maternity if you want. She did have abortions as well, so. Which is obviously unrelated. Well, no, I. It's a health issue, actually. I was going to say it's unrelated to the accident, but it's not. You know, there was question about whether she could carry a baby to term because of the damage that she'd suffered. And one of her doctors thought she probably could. But, you know, it's a question mark.

[D]

It's a risk, isn't it, that. I mean, if doctors have told you, we don't know if your body's going to be able to do this.

[C]

Yeah. She had different advice from different doctors. And if we're thinking about Frida Kahlo and maternity, there is this what I think is a myth that she was desperate to have Diego Rivera's baby, and she was crushed. Some even say neurotic because she couldn't. And I don't, thank you very much, eyebrows. But she got pregnant in their first year of marriage, and she had an abortion. And the reason she gave was the baby was in the wrong place, the fetus was in the wrong place, but she was three months pregnant. And the technology of the time. So is that credible? What does that mean? And then when they were in the United States, she was pregnant again. Again. And she initially wanted to abort it, and she tried with ingesting on prescription, and the abortion didn't work, and she ended up deciding to keep the pregnancy. But in the letters that she wrote to her doctor and friends, we really see a lot of ambivalence around being pregnant. You know, ambivalence around her own health and could her body. Body handle it. Ambivalence around Diego and his moment in his career, but also what it would mean for them. And bear in mind, as I said earlier, he had a tendency to leave women who had his babies.

[D]

Oh, God, yes. Yes.

[C]

And then there was a third abortion, some a few years later. Now, Diego, in his autobiography, says that she had other pregnancies and she did really want to have his baby. And he says he told her she couldn't get pregnant again because. Because of the risk to her health.

[D]

So I wonder if he works out what was causing that, then check.

[C]

Yeah, yeah. But you know, where exactly the truth lies.

[D]

Did she have any children?

[C]

She never had children. I'm happy to say confidently that the idea that Frida was somehow desperate, desperate, desperate to have Diego's baby and would do anything to have that happen. That's not correct.

[D]

It doesn't sound like she's desperate, desperate, desperate. It sounds like she had the opportunity a few times and decided not to go through with it.

[C]

That seems the most likely. She definitely had three abortions, and, you know, could she have had a baby if she had been on bed rest and under medical care for nine months? Maybe, but that was not a choice. When the moment came, she made other choices.

[D]

And she also had her leg amputated, didn't she?

[C]

Yes, that was quite late in life. That was 19.

[D]

Was that related to the polio?

[C]

Yeah, the leg amputation was because she had had. Yeah, that was in 1953. She had had issues with gangrene.

[D]

Gangrene?

[C]

The leg gangrene? Yeah, the leg was gangrenous and they ended up amputating it just below the.

[D]

Do we know what. What caused that? You said she had ulcers on her leg. Had they gone gangrenous then?

[C]

Yes, from 1949, she had gangrene in her right foot. I've not seen anybody say directly it was the ulcers that led to the gangrene, but it was something that had been happening for a number of years and clearly it had spread.

[D]

She must have been a tremendous amount of pain.

[C]

Yeah, yeah. And she was on heavy painkillers at different points in her life and also drinking to try and deal with the pain.

[D]

My God, that's crazy. So she's in this marriage with Diego. He's having affairs. She's having. Everybody's having affairs. Affairs. The artwork is amazing.

[C]

I should just tell you about one more affair he had because it's key.

[D]

Please.

[C]

He slept with her younger sister.

[D]

No, he didn't. Get out of here, Diego.

[C]

Very bad. Oh, very bad.

[D]

How. How much younger?

[C]

Oh, now That's a question. 11 months.

[D]

Oh, it's not. It's not as awful as I thought that could have been. Oh, did she find out about that?

[C]

She did find out about it. And Christina, the sister, was the one who she was closest to of her sister. Cristina also appears in various of Diego Rivera's murals, including she posed for him nude, which maybe not such a good thing here. One of the things about Diego Rivera's murals is you can tell the women he's sleeping with because he puts these kind of glassy eyed look on their faces. So if you see his murals, you're like, oh, that one. Yeah, that one.

[D]

The ones that he didn't sleep with, they just had their arms folded across the chest.

[C]

They're very serious looking. So Christina, there is an image of her looking a bit glassy eyed, anyway. Yes. So Frida did find out, and it was devastating, as you can imagine, and it harmed her relationship with Christina for a period, although they did make up. But she and Diego divorced a little Bit later.

[D]

Oh, they divorced.

[C]

They did divorce. For just one. One year.

[D]

Well, they can't stay apart from one another, can they, these two?

[C]

No, no, it was. Let's see, they divorced in 1939, and then they remarried in 1940. Diego says he went to her and said, we need to get a divorce because I. I'm hurting you, and I can't stop hurting you, you know.

[D]

Well, that's such a line, that one. That's such a stupid. Oh, don't fall in love with me. Oh, I'm just gonna hurt you off. Sorry. I may. That may have been tapping into something quite personal to myself there. I'll refocus. So they get divorced, and then they get back together again very quickly.

[C]

They do. Fairly quickly. And they actually have one of their friends who was a doctor, tells them, you two, for your own sake, you need to get back together.

[D]

Medically ordered.

[C]

Yeah. He says, leo, their friend and doctor, advised them to get back together because it was bad for their health, even though he knew Diego couldn't be faithful. Now, Frida gave him three conditions on getting back together. One is she would cover her own expenses by selling her artwork. Two is that he would pay his half of household expenses. And three, they wouldn't have sex.

[D]

What?

[C]

Now, I don't know for a fact, obviously, that that third condition was met, but Diego does recount in his autobiography that in that last period of their marriage, when they'd remarried, Frida enjoyed hearing about his sexual liaisons with other women.

[D]

Well, this is an interesting shift, an interesting dynamic, that it's become a sexless relationship, and they're kind of cheering each other on, having sex with other people.

[C]

Yeah. And I think. I mean, in some ways, maybe they maintained the bit that was fundamentally most important for them about their relationship, which was the connection as artists and people, and that the sex actually became a bit of a problem.

[D]

Messes stuff up.

[C]

Yeah. Yeah. The emotion around the cheating, which he was not prepared to stop.

[D]

It doesn't sound like it. Did they stay together for the rest of. Well, the rest of her life. Because she died crazy young.

[C]

She died at 47 in 1954.

[D]

That's no age to be dying. Do we know.

[C]

I know why.

[D]

I mean, I say why. But she had so many health complications. Was it just a result of bad health?

[C]

Well, officially, the story is that she. Yes. That she died of bad health, but there are suspicions of suicide, which I believe. So it's really, really tragic. Really tragic. So for the last years of her life, her health had really deteriorated she was having to wear these corsets to help keep her secure, you know, because her spine was so damaged. And the amputation was in 1953. Just an aside, there is an absolutely fabulous leather red boot prosthesis that she had. So high heeled red boot painted just like, if you're going to have a prosthesis, my goodness, that's the way to go about it. Yeah. But in any case, after the leg amputation, that was really a very difficult period for her. And you can see this in the diary how hard it was for her. She'd also lost a lot of her motor control late in life. She was actually being cared for. She wasn't able to fully care for herself. So her ability to paint had diminished terribly because she no longer had the fine motor skills required for the painting. And the last written entry in her diary was, I hope the end is beautiful, and I hope never to come back. Now, it's possible that was about coming out of the hospital. It's possible that was not in terms of deciding to end her own life. But Diego Rivera recounts that she often told her nurses that she wanted to die. And she also gave him their 25th anniversary gift the night before she died, even though their anniversary was two weeks away.

[D]

That sounds like that's planned.

[C]

Yeah. And she told him, I feel I'm going to leave you very soon. And the last painting in the diary is this winged figure wearing boots and with green wings. And it's leaving the page. The figure is slightly off the page, heading away, so really quite moving.

[D]

So you think that this was a deliberate act, then?

[C]

I think so. I think it was probably. She had access to drugs.

[D]

Right.

[C]

So I suspect if it wasn't deliberate. Deliberate, it was a little bit allowing too much to be. Yeah, I mean, we can't. Obviously, we can't know for sure, but there are enough.

[D]

But it sounds like she was in a tremendous amount of pain and was losing so many things that were vitally important to her.

[C]

Yes. And it does seem like not being able to paint was absolutely crushing. And Raquel Thiboll, who was an Argentine journalist and art critic who spent some time with Frida in those very last period, remembers that when she went to visit her in the Casa Azul, the blue house in Koyakan where Frida had grown up and which Diego had paid off the mortgage and then put the house in Frida's name. So this was her home, her family home and her home. And Raquel remembers that Frida took one of her paintings, which was probably the last one and very poorly executed. And she took a knife and she started to scrape as if in anger. So I think there was a lot of just anguish that she could no longer be the painter she wanted to be.

[D]

I think that, that, that makes sense. So as a. As a final question then, about this absolutely extraordinary person, did she know how good she was? Was she. In her lifetime? Did she. Cause, like, now we look at. She's. So it's feminist and it's iconic, and it's about Mexican heritage and nationalism and sexuality. Did she know that she was that good?

[C]

That's a really good question, I'm gonna say. She must have, because clearly she had this. This standard that she held herself to and an expectation of what she wanted her art to be, how she wanted it to be. And she knew that what she was doing was revolutionary in its own way. She knew that she was really challenging forms of self representation and, you know, creating these sometimes disturbing but always arresting and haunting paintings and very honest. So, yeah, I think she did know. I hope she knew.

[D]

I hope she knew.

[C]

I sure hope she knew.

[D]

I hope she knew. Patience, you have been wonderful to talk to. Thank you so much. If people want to know more about you and your work, where can they find you?

[C]

I am at the University of Africa.

[D]

I'm going to get inundated with Frida Kahlo funds. Leave Patience alone.

[C]

No. Lovely. Love to hear from people. I teach Latin American history at the University of Aberdeen. I'm in the Spanish department, but I'm a historian of Latin America.

[D]

Well, thank you so much for coming by to talk us all about this amazing woman. You've been brilliant.

[C]

Thank you, Kate. Thank you very much for the opportunity.

[D]

Thank you for listening. And thank you so much to Patience for joining us. And if you like what you heard, don't forget to, like, review and follow along whatever it is you get. Your podcasts.

[C]

Coming up.

[D]

We've got the third episode in our miniseries on history's worst breakups with Oshka Kokoschka and Alma Mahler and oh, my God, God, this one is a doozy. And we also have an episode on George sand, one of the most scandalous people of all 19th century Paris all coming your way. And if you would like us to explore a subject or if you wanted to say hello, then you can email [e-mail] this podcast was edited by Tim Arstel and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Freddie Chick. Join me again betwixt the sheets, the history of Sex Scandal in Society, a podcast by History hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.

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