Vesna Zmijanac Says Her Marriage to Kemiš Was Over Long Before Their Split

Vesna Zmijanac has revisited her marriage to celebrated accordionist Miroljub Aranđelović Kemiš, describing a relationship that, in her account, had effectively ended before the couple officially separated. She also rejected the long-running suggestion that singer Zorica Brunclik was responsible for their breakup. Zmijanac recalled that Kemiš was the only fellow performer with whom she had a romantic relationship. She said his musical ability made a strong impression when they met, after he returned from studying in Germany as an accomplished accordionist. Looking back, however, she suggested that admiration for his talent could not overcome the differences between them. The singer also spoke about their unsuccessful attempts to have a child during the marriage. She said they both wanted to become parents and that, as far as they knew, there was no medical explanation for why it did not happen. After they parted ways, Kemiš had children in a later marriage, while Zmijanac became the mother of daughter Nikolija. The most pointed part of her account concerned the timing of the marriage’s collapse. Zmijanac said the relationship was already in trouble while they were still together, describing it as finished well before their formal separation. She characterized the later media attention around the split as a spectacle and firmly denied that Brunclik had taken Kemiš away from her. According to Zmijanac, Brunclik had nothing to do with the end of the marriage: events involving her colleague unfolded only after the couple had separated. Her recollections offer a personal account of a relationship that attracted years of public speculation, while making clear that she sees the breakup as the result of problems that had existed between the two spouses long beforehand.