Photographs of a "pregnant" Marilyn Monroe have emerged.

Marilyn Monroe lived her life under a constant spotlight, but new photos suggest she may have been secretly pregnant just two years before her death, according to The Sun. 

This week, never-before-seen photos emerged of the curvy bombshell with a rounded belly, taken on July 8, 1960.

Tony Michaels, the owner of the images, insists that the Hollywood star was expecting a baby at the time and that the father was not her third husband, Arthur Miller, but Italian-French actor Yves Montand.

The photos were taken in New York by Marilyn’s close friend and photographer Frieda Hull, who, according to Mail Online, kept them secret until her death in June 2014.

The images were then bought by Michaels, Frieda’s neighbour, last November at an auction of Frieda’s estate.

“Frieda was very proud of those slides and she was very proud to keep them a secret until the day she died. But she told me the story behind them, that Marilyn got pregnant by Yves Montand,” Michaels told Mail Online.

“It wasn’t a guess or a presumption, it was something she knew for sure, she was very close to Marilyn,” he added.

Monroe and Montand co-starred in the musical Let’s Make Love.

“Next to my husband and Marlon Brando, I think Yves Montand is the most attractive man I’ve ever met,” Monroe said at the time.

It was during this period that her marriage was breaking down.  She reportedly read in Miller’s diary that she “disappointed” him as a wife, while she poured her loneliness into the pages of her journal.

During filming in Los Angeles in 1960, Marilyn and her husband and Montand and his wife had neighbouring bungalows at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

Michaels claims that in April, when work took Miller and Signoret away, Marilyn and Montand had a brief but torrid affair.

Monroe historian Scott Fortner said “Some say she visited him in his room, others say he visited her.

“Montand himself says he visited Marilyn because she wasn’t feeling well. A simple goodnight kiss started it all," he added.

Years later, in an interview with David Letterman, Montand explained it was their mutual fear of filming that drove them together.

He said: “It was a very good relationship. She was afraid of shooting. I was also afraid because I didn’t speak English, so we were drawn together. But maybe that made our relationship become more tender.

“What the newspapers were putting in, I think they made a mistake because nobody knew what happened between us.”

When filming wrapped in July, so did their brief fling. Marilyn and Montand were seen in a Cadillac at Idlewild airport (now JFK) in July, drinking Dom Perignon and eating caviar. This is when Montand told Monroe that he would not be leaving his wife.

Soon afterwards, and just a month after the photos were taken, the baby rumours surfaced.

Marilyn was filming The Misfits when she was reportedly admitted to hospital. Frieda Hull told Mr Michaels it was due to a nervous breakdown and a possible miscarriage.

What do you say to someone who's lost a baby? On this Glorious Mess.

According to friends, Marilyn had already had three miscarriages and yearned for a baby.

In 1952, when she had her appendix removed, Marilyn taped a letter to her stomach. It read: “Cut as little as possible. I know it seems vain but that doesn’t really come into it. The fact I’m a woman is important."

“You have children and you must know what it means. For God’s sakes Dear Doctor, no ovaries removed.”

The actress suffered from endometriosis, a condition that makes it more difficult to get pregnant and increases the risk of miscarriage. The endometriosis led Monroe to take the barbiturates she would become dependent on, and that would ultimately kill her in 1962.

Despite the rumours, there's only ever been one documented miscarriage in the summer of 1957.