Andrei Kirilenko: Still Allowed to Cheat on Wife Once a Year

Brooklyn Nets basketball player Andrei Kirilenko is still permitted to cheat on Russian pop star wife Masha Lopatova once a year, she says in an interview.

The unique “allowance” she grants him has been rumored for years, but has been reported again by the New York Post after his arrival in Brooklyn.

“What’s forbidden is always desirable. And athletes, particularly men, are susceptible to all the things they are offered,” Masha Lopatova, 34, said.

“It’s the same way raising children," she goes on. "If I tell my child, ‘No pizza, no pizza, no pizza,’ what does he want more than anything? Pizza!”

Lopatova said the goal of the short-lived sex fling card is to contain the Russian-born hoopster’s temptation to sleep around during months on the road.

“Male athletes in this country are extremely attractive,” Lopatova said. “They get chased by women. It’s hard to resist. It’s the way men are by nature."

"When I’m aware and I let him do it, it’s not cheating.”

Andrei Kirilenko, 32, knows the score, she says. He can have sex with another woman for one night and one night only. Affairs won’t be tolerated.

And the agreement isn’t reciprocal, Lopatova says.

“Of course it was a surprise,” Kirilenko, then with the Utah Jazz, once said when this arrangement first came to light. “I’m not planning to do anything."

"But she said ‘if you want to do it, you can do it.’ If something isn’t allowed, you want to get it. But if it is allowed to you, you will not need it.”

The couple has been married for nearly 13 years and have two sons, ages 11 and 6 ... so apparently it's working out for them at least so far.

No word if he has ever entered "free agency."