Dwyane Wade revealed that his relationship with Gabrielle Union almost didn’t survive the time that the athlete told her he got another woman pregnant in 2013. “I tried to pussyfoot around it,” the former NBA star, 41, said about the scandal in a new interview with Shannon Sharpe. “I tried to break up with her,” he added. Dwyane recalled telling Gabrielle, 50, at the time, “‘Hey, things have been bad lately. Hey, we’ve been having a little distance in our relationship anyway.’ I tried all of that. She kept showing up.”
Over a decade ago, Dwyane and his now-wife were on a break in their relationship when he fathered a baby with Basketball Wives star Aja Metoyer. His son Xavier, now 9, was born at the end of 2013. Gabrielle ultimately forgave Dwyane for what he did and they got married in 2014 — but the situation was still difficult for the couple and their whole family.
“It was all scary,” Dwyane recalled in the interview. “One, the whole situation is scary enough. I’m a public figure. But you know that this is going to hurt someone that you’ve been building a relationship with and a life with.” He continued, “No matter what people say on the outside, or what people want to think, ultimately you gotta sit with you, and you gotta sit with this person, and I had to sit with my now wife and have this conversation.”
The former Miami Heat player explained that he “couldn’t have gotten through” the scandal if Gabrielle didn’t “stick” by him. Dwyane also admitted that it still affects his and Gabrielle’s relationship today. “It hasn’t been perfect,” he shared. “It will never be perfect. That was nine years ago. We go to therapy, been to therapy. We’ve had shouts about it, we’ve had regular conversations about it. It’s going to continue to be something that I have to work at and work on. It doesn’t go away because I say, ‘I’m sorry.’ ”
“When it comes to my wife and I, that’s hard,” Dwyane said. “That’s always there. When it comes to my son [Xavier], that’s hard for him. This is going to always be there. He’s done nothing. It’s a stain that’s on him for no reason. I think about that. We’re adults. This is a young kid who has already got a negative impact next to his name because of how he was brought into this world. I think about the son that bears my name and I think about my wife. But ultimately, what I do know is this is my family. We’re gonna get through this how we get through it.”
Dwyane and Gabrielle did indeed get through the professional athlete’s scandal, and they’ve been happily married for nine years. Their adorable daughter Kaavia, 4, was born in 2018. Dwyane also shares two children with his ex Siohvaughn Funches, and he raised his nephew as his own son, making him a dad of five.