Dwyane Wade Recalls Telling Gabrielle Union About Fathering A Child With His Ex ‘The Hardest Thing’

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Dwyane Wade fathered his 6-year-old son Xavier during a brief split from Gabrielle Union, and opened up about telling her in his new ESPN documentary.

Dwyane Wade, 38, is getting raw and personal in his new documentary D. Wade: Life Unexpected — including the moment he had to tell his now-wife Gabrielle Union, 47, that he was expecting a child with another woman. “I had a child with someone else and I had to tell her,” Dwyane revealed. “Hardest thing I’ve ever had to do is man up and tell Gabrielle Union that I’ve had a child with somebody else…I couldn’t sleep. I wasn’t eating.” He added that the emotional moment “wasn’t easy,” and that

“When you hold something in that you know is going to come out and you have this information and you know it’s gonna f*** somebody’s life up, that you care about, that you love, if it don’t hurt you, then you’re not human,” he continued in the emotional clip, adding that they “went through something that you never want to go through and we still came out of it.” The Miami Heat star fathered son Xavier, 6, in 2013 with ex Aja Metoyerin — who later went on to star on Basketball Wives — during a brief split with Gabrielle. At the time, Dwyane was also a proud dad to Zaire, 18, and Zaya, 12, with ex Siohvaughn Funches. Shortly after revealing the baby news to Gabrielle, he proposed. “She wasn’t just marrying me, she was marrying all this baggage,” Dwyane revealed.

The decision ended up being the best one they made, and the pair have been happily married since 2014! The couple celebrated their five year anniversary with a lavish trip to Europe and looked more in love than ever in the gorgeous pics. Gabrielle and Dwyane went on to welcome their adorable daughter Kaavia, 1, in 2018. The couple opted for a surrogacy after several rounds of IVF treatments and fertility struggles. “I have had eight or nine miscarriages,” Gabrielle revealed in a 2017 essay. “For three years, my body has been a prisoner of trying to get pregnant — I’ve either been about to go into an IVF cycle, in the middle of an IVF cycle, or coming out of an IVF cycle.”

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Dwyane has proved that he’s the ultimate doting dad over the years, supporting Zaya — who was born Zion — as she/her. “We are proud parents of a child in the LGBTQ+ community,” Dwyane said to Ellen DeGeneres on Feb. 11. “We’re proud allies, as well. We take our roles and responsibility as parents very seriously. So when our child comes home with a question or an issue or anything, it’s our job as parents to listen and give them the best information and feedback that we can. That doesn’t change because sexuality is involved with it. Once Zaya, our 12-year-old, came home — originally Zion, born as a boy — and said, ‘Hey, I want to talk to you guys, I think going forward I’m ready to live my truth. I want to be referenced as she and her. I would love for you guys to call me Zaya.’ Internally, it’s now our job to go out and get information.”

D. Wade: Life Unexpected premieres on ESPN on Sunday, Feb. 23 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.