Kate Upton & Justin Verlander’s History: Everything To Know About The Model & MLB Star’s 5 Year Marriage
Kate Upton and Justin Verlander have been together for ten years and married for five. Learn about how they met and their marriage here!
Kate Upton and Justin Verlander have been married for five years and are going strong. The adorable duo met in 2012 while working on a commercial for the Major League Baseball 2K12 video game. Almost a year later, they made their romance public. However, they experienced some turbulence and briefly broke up, allowing Kate to have a short romance with Dancing with the Stars pro dancer Maksim Chmerkovskiy. Kate, 30, and the Major League Baseball player, 39, were back together by the beginning of 2014 and Justin proposed to the stunning supermodel in 2016.
Speaking of the “great elaborate proposal” on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in Nov. 2017, Kate said her thoughts were running wild when it was happening. “He gets down on one knee and he pops open the ring box, and in my mind, I was like, ‘Don’t look at the ring. He’s gonna think you’re materialistic. Just look in his eyes. Listen to what he’s saying. Listen. You’re not listening, Kate!’ This is my internal dialogue,” she recalled. “And then, finally, I was like, ‘He stopped talking. Just say yes!’ And I said yes and he stands up and he was like, ‘Do you not like the ring? You didn’t look at it once.'”
Kate and Justin walked down the aisle in 2017, although they technically missed their own wedding! read on to learn more about Kate and Justin, and their sweet marriage.
Who Is Kate Upton’s Husband?
As mentioned above, Justin is an MLB player who currently pitches for the Houston Astros. He was born in Manakin Sabot, Va. on Feb. 20, 1983 and played ball at Old Dominion University. After graduating, he joined the roster of the Detroit Tigers in 2005. He stayed with them until transferring to the Astros in 2017.
Justin’s interviews and social media pages revolve around baseball, but he does occasionally post about his wife and lets her know how special she is. For instance, on their fourth anniversary in Nov. 2021, he shared a photo of him and Kate smiling at each other. “These past 4 years have been the best thanks to you… I’m so lucky to call you my wife,” he captioned the adorable image. “Happy anniversary @kateupton! I love you!”
Plus, after Kate posted a sexy snapshot to Instagram in May 2022, he let her know she has his attention. He liked the post and commented under it with a heart-eyed smiley face and fire emojis.
Who is Justin Verlander’s Wife?
Kate is a model and actress who has been featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated three times. She was born on June 10, 1992 in Michigan, but grew up in Florida. She first started working with Sports illustrated in 2011 and earned a Rookie of the Year award, according to her SI profile. The following year, she landed her first cover at just 19 years old. “This means so much for me personally. This has always been my dream,” she told PEOPLE at the time. By then, she had already modeled for Victoria’s Secret and Guess. Kate appeared on the cover of SI again in 2014 and for the third time in 2017.
The 2017 cover advocated for body diversity and inclusion — something Kate had been passionate about for years. “For SI to emphasize every different type of perfect is really inspiring. Those are the campaigns I want to do and the career I want to have — to inspire women to love themselves,” gushed to Sports Illustrated.
She also spoke about how her own mindset regarding outer beauty and fitness evolved since her first SI cover. “This year, I had a completely different mindset about my body and instead of always trying to fit in a certain sample size, I wanted to be strong and healthy,” she explained. “Changing my workout and focusing on weight training helped me do that. It helped me think about my body as a machine and less of something people can judge me on. “
Kate has always been honest about loving her curves and said she would much rather have them than have the stereotypical model body type. “When I first started modeling, I was a normal catalog model,” she remembered to Elle UK in 2014. “Then, I became a woman, and I was really excited about becoming a woman. Because I’m from Florida, it’s all about being in bathing suits. It’s a different view of beauty there. You are ugly if you don’t have a curvy body. And I didn’t have one, and then I got one, and thought, ‘Yessss!'”
Kate & Justin’s Wedding
Kate was an engaged woman as she was shooting her 2017 SI cover. She and Justin planned their nuptials for Nov. 4, 2017 in Tuscany, Italy at the Rosewood Castiglion Del Bosco resort, and all was going smoothly — until Justin was traded to the Astros mid-season. Justin and Kate debated the move heavily, but ultimately, they decided it was better for Justin’s career to be on a team with a chance of getting into the World Series. Well, not only did Houston make it to the World Series; they won it, making it the first win in franchise history. So why is this a double-edged sword? The World Series took place when Justin and Kate had a pre-wedding event planned!
“We had an event that night and everyone’s texting us, like, ‘Your wedding’s so pretty. Wish you were here,'” Kate said as she sat next to her husband on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon two weeks after they tied the knot. Luckily, they made it to Italy for Nov. 4 and they were able to join their friends and family who had already been there waiting for them to arrive.
“It was a very special moment. It was pretty storybook,” Justin recalled to PEOPLE in March 2018. “The moment the gates opened and I saw her walking down the aisle, I lost it. She looked so beautiful, and I had been looking forward to that day for a long time. All the emotions came to me, and it was everything I had imagined it would be and more.”
He also recalled seeing her in her sexy sheer gown she changed into later on in the evening. “I knew she was doing a change, but didn’t know what it was,” he told Us Weekly in March 2018. “The second I saw her in that, I was like, ‘OK, time to go. Let’s get out of here. Wedding over!”
The happy couple remained in Italy following their gorgeous ceremony for their honeymoon. “Kate and I are doers, we want to experience towns and cities wherever we are. We rented a car and drove to little towns,” Justin told the publication “We learned the history and experienced the food. It was a lot of fun.”
Do Kate & Justin Have Kids?
In July 2018, Kate took to Instagram to announce she was expecting her first child with Justin. On November 7, they welcomed their baby girl, named Genevieve, into the world. “Welcome to the world Genevieve Upton Verlander,” the model wrote on Instagram alongside a photo of her newborn sleeping.
In May the following year, Kate gave an update on her baby girl while chatting with PEOPLE and revealed she is “laughing and smiling” frequently. “She melts my heart. I’m so obsessed with her,” she added.
A few months later in August, Kate opened up about what it was like getting back into the gym after giving birth and admitted it was not easy. “That was actually the hardest thing for me — going from being extremely strong to not even really being able to do a lunge,” she told Health magazine. “I’m more than eight months post giving birth and am still not as strong as I was.”
Kate also opened up about her decision to not let her photos from the shoot be retouched. “When you think about it, we have retouching everywhere now — and we don’t even know it. People are staging Instagram shots and retouching those pictures. That’s the new norm. And then we believe that’s how people actually look, and think we should look that way too,” she explained. “So, for me, doing an unretouched shoot is a step toward embracing real life,” she added. “The goal should be to be the best you can be — not try to look like someone else.”
Regardless of how physically strong she is, Justin told Us Weekly in March 2019 that he is beyond proud of Kate and her transition into motherhood. “She’s been the most amazing woman and mom. I knew that she would set a great example for our daughter, no matter what. It’s the person that she is, it’s the person who I married. I’ve always appreciated her for her strength,” he gushed.
“But just seeing her interact, all the nurturing and everything that goes on with being a mother, it’s been tremendous to watch,” he continued. “I know it’s not easy for her either, but it’s quite a connection that they have, and it’s really special for me to be able to witness that and be a part of it.”