The NBA Hall of Famer talked about the moment when he told Union that he had fathered a child, Xavier Zechariah Wade, with another woman — Aja Métoyer — while the famous couple was on a relationship break in 2013.
The Miami Heat legend said he tried to end his relationship with Union at the time, feeling it would be the smartest move for both of them given the circumstances.
“I tried to pussyfoot around it, I tried to break up with her,” Wade told sports commentator Shannon Sharpe in a recirculated clip from his June interview on the “Club Shay Shay” podcast. “‘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.”
After some time, Wade knew he had to have the “hard conversation” with Union about the situation.
“You’re thinking about it all, it’s all scary,” Wade said. “But you know that this is going to hurt someone that you’ve been building a relationship with and a life with. 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 wife and have this conversation.”
Wade acknowledged that he “couldn’t have gotten through that moment” without Union being at his side.
By December 2013, the two had overcome the situation and were back together. The “Bring It On” actor and the NBA basketball champ shared the news of their engagement in a handful of Instagram photos. “Sooooo this happened… #Yessss,” Union gushed, captioning a photo of an enormous cushion-cut sparkler settled snugly on her ring finger. They got married in Miami in 2014.
While the couple is in a better place now, the 2013 argument is still something the duo is actively moving through emotionally.
“It hasn’t been perfect, it will never be perfect, but that was nine years ago,” Wade said. “We go to therapy, we’ve had shouts about it, we’ve had regular conversations about it, and so it’s been something that going to be something that I have to work at and work on. … It doesn’t go away because years come or because I say ‘sorry.’”
Union opened up about finding out that Wade would share a new baby with another woman in her memoir “You Got Anything Stronger?” published in late 2021. “To say I was devastated is to pick a word on a low shelf for convenience,” Gabrielle wrote. “I have not had words, and even after untold amounts of therapy I am not sure I have them now. But truth matters.”
The thing that worries Wade most about the situation is the potential psychic effect it could have on his son.
“When it comes to my son, that’s hard for him,” Wade said. “This is gonna always be there. He’s done nothing. It’s a stain that’s on him for no reason. And I think about that more. … This is a young kid who has already got a negative impact next to his name and he hasn’t even had a chance to accomplish anything yet.”