40+ Iconic Athletes Who Cheated on Their Wives Publicly and Were Forgiven

Alex Rodriguez, also known as A-Rod, played for three different teams in the MLB. But, it seems that somewhere along the way, he forgot what teamwork means — at least in regards to his relationship with Jennifer Lopez. In fact, the athlete was accused of cheating on her several times during the span of their relationship.

The most recent accusation was with Madison LeCroy from the Bravo TV show, Southern Charm. And while JLo, A-Rod, and Madison all refuse to confirm the affair, whatever happened was bad enough to cause a split and send JLo back to Ben Affleck.

Antonio Cromartie from the New York Jets has had a rocky relationship with model Terricka Cason. At one point, she took it so far as to threaten self-harm, causing Cromartie to call the police, who found her taking a nap with her kids.

She said she did it to get attention from Cromartie, who had been cheating on her with other women. Whatever her reasoning, self-harm is never something to lie about. They worked it out and are still together, though.

Avisail Garcia has played baseball for four different MLB teams, one of which was the Detroit Tigers, where he played with teammate Prince Fielder. When people wondered why Fielder had been playing badly, it was revealed that Garcia had slept with his wife.

Garcia was also married. Infidelity is already bad, but injecting yourself into your teammate’s marriage makes it even worse. Garcia’s wife forgave him and they’re still together, but we doubt she’ll ever forget. Neither will Prince Fielder.

NFL player Brandon Marshall wasn’t simply caught cheating on his wife. He was part of a much bigger, more serious scandal. He and another player owned a house that they used to cheat away from the prying eyes of the media.

They only got caught because of a shooting in front of the house after a burglary. Surely his wife, Michi Nogami, wasn’t happy — but despite their tumultuous relationship, they’re still married today. Hopefully, they sold that horrible house.

Carmelo Anthony may be a 10-time NBA All-Star, but he’s not an all-star when it comes to his marriage with La La Anthony. Rumors of his infidelity plagued them, on top of other controversial actions by Carmelo.

The public may have forgiven Carmelo, but La La hasn’t. After a brief split in 2018 and a reconciliation, La La finally filed for divorce in June of 2021. Not only is he currently on the lookout for a new team, but he may also need to find a new wife.

Chad Johnson was in the NFL for 11 years, playing for multiple teams, and even spent a season in the Canadian Football League. His switch to Canada wasn’t due to loving maple syrup, though.

After an argument over a receipt, he was arrested for domestic violence and released from the Miami Dolphins. He’s now on Selling Tampa on Netflix. His marriage may have gone south, but his career in the spotlight certainly hasn’t. It seems the public has a shorter memory span than his ex-wife does.

Chien-Ming Wang’s celebrity came from more than being an MLB pitcher. A Taiwanese newspaper put him on blast with photos of him having an affair. He didn’t ignore or deny the accusations, though — he owned up to them.

His wife, who he had been married to for nine years, forgave him and they had another kid together. Now, he’s a pitching coordinator in Taiwan. It just goes to show that admitting mistakes is better than denying and lying.

Chipper Jones is now an assistant hitting consultant for the Atlanta Braves after a successful career playing for them. He’s also written a memoir, Ballplayer, where he discusses many aspects of his life — including how he came clean about his affairs.

He had a girl in three different cities, one of whom he got pregnant. It looks like he was a player in more ways than one. He and his wife at the time divorced, but he’s remarried now and doing well.

Stunned to see a name as big as David Beckham on this list? So are we, but it seems to be a trend for good-looking athletes to go astray in their relationships, even when married to someone as incredible as Victoria Beckham.

He had an affair with his personal assistant in 2004, and Victoria described it as one of the hardest times in their marriage. It seems to have made them stronger, however, and they continue to build an empire together.

Have you ever heard of a ‘twodel’? Apparently, it’s a Twitter model, and one specific twodel managed to catch the attention of NFL star Deion Sanders. There’s a lot of evidence putting the two together in a scandalous affair.

There’s flight itineraries, text messages, and even photos of her with his custom car keys! He and his wife got a divorce, and Deion’s a coach now. Hopefully, he teaches his players to make better decisions than he did.

For years now, friends have “hacked” each other’s social media accounts, posting funny or embarrassing messages for all of the friend’s virtual friends to see. But, what happens when an Instagram hack isn’t so cute? Delanie Walker could tell you.

His ex-girlfriend posted on his account that he was cheating on her. Lucky for him, the NFL doesn’t discriminate against cheaters — at least, not if the cheating was in a relationship. Walker broke his ankle, though, and is struggling to keep his career going. Maybe it’s karma.

Dwayne Wade and Gabrielle Union are the definition of a power couple. The three-time NBA champion and actress have worked hard to get where they are. But, it wasn’t always all sunshine and roses for the pair.

Before they were married, Dwayne had a baby with another woman. Gabrielle recently opened up about how hard it was for her, yet she’s stuck by his side and they’ve supposedly grown stronger from the experience.

One would think that the night before a game as massive as the Super Bowl, football players would be focusing on preparing themselves for the game. You wouldn’t think that this would involve call girls, yet that was the case for NFL star Eugene Robinson.

He solicited an escort that turned out to be an undercover cop and got arrested. His career survived the ordeal, but we aren’t sure if the same can be said for his relationship. Talk about a night out gone very, very wrong.

When athlete husbands go to a hotel, the last thing their wives should worry about is whether they’re participating in illegal activities wiith underage girls. But that’s exactly what Franck Ribery’s wife, Wahiba, discovered. A hotel stay in Munich turned sour.

Both Ribery and the girl say he didn’t know she was underage, and it seems Wahiba believed him and has forgiven him. So did the public, because he still plays soccer professionally for Salernitana in the US.

Some people may know Hank Baskett as a former NFL wide receiver. Others may know him from the reality show Kendra that he starred in with his ex-wife, Kendra Wilkinson. And then there’s those who know him for having had an affair.

It occurred while Kendra was eight months pregnant, and she shrugged it off as him being very naïve and gullible. Yet their marriage ultimately ended in divorce. Hank’s now popular in the videogame industry as a partner at a console company.

John Terry is a Chelsea soccer legend for more reasons than one. Not only did he have an extramarital affair, but it was with his teammate Wayne Bridge’s girlfriend. And not only is she his teammate’s girlfriend, but also his wife’s best friend!

Terry was begging for the situation to blow up in his face, and it did. He may be a coaching consultant at Chelsea Academy now, but absolutely no one should be consulting him for advice on relationships.

Kevin Garnett retired from professional basketball in 2016. He ranked in the top 20 in history for points, blocks, steals, and games. He didn’t just play games for the NBA, though — he constantly played around during his relationship with Brandi Padilla.

He reportedly went on dates with other women while married to her. There are even photos of him snuggling up with other women. The two had a nasty divorce, but it’s over. Now, he’s focusing on his production company.

Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant’s history with his wife, Vanessa, is very sad. The couple had a rough patch when Bryant had an inappropriate encounter with a young woman working at a hotel in Vail, Colorado.

Vanessa suffered a miscarriage during the trial with the young woman, and Bryant largely blamed himself. They worked through it, but then Kobe passed away in a tragic helicopter crash in 2020, along with one of their daughters. Vanessa and the others still deal with the aftermath.

Another Los Angeles Lakers star with fidelity issues is Lamar Odom. While married to Khloé Kardashian, they starred in a reality TV show together, Khloé & Lamar. Apparently, it opened up a lot of doors, and we don’t mean business opportunity wise.

Lamar said it brought a bunch of women his way, and he couldn’t keep certain things in his pants. This, combined with a dangerous bender in 2015, led to he and Khloé’s divorce. Now, he’s finished a stint on Celebrity Big Brother and wants to coach his old college basketball team.

2013 was a weird year for Lebron James. While he was winning championships with the Miami Heat basketball team, he was also rumored to be having an affair with a swimsuit model and asked a woman at the White House for her phone number.

Despite the rumors, he and Savannah got married in the same year, so it wasn’t all bad (at least, depending on how you look at it). They’re still married and he now plays for the Los Angeles Lakers.

Magic Johnson is often considered to be the NBA’s greatest point guard of all time. His time with the NBA was smooth sailing, but his relationship with his wife, Cookie, hasn’t always been so successful. In 1991, just 45 days after they married, he was diagnosed with a serious virus.

Cookie stood by his side, but said it was difficult to listen to him call all the women he had cheated on her with to tell them the news. Now, Johnson owns a couple of sports teams and he and Cookie are still going strong.

Having affairs with the girlfriends or wives of teammates seems to be a common theme among professional athletes. Maybe it feels more dangerous and daring than a simple affair with an outsider. Whatever the reason, professional soccer player Mesut Ozil is another person guilty of this.

He was accused of an affair with Bayern Munich defender Christian Lell’s ex-girlfriend. While he hasn’t admitted to it, he and his girlfriend at the time split up. He’s still playing soccer, though, currently for a team in Turkey.

Michael Jordan is perhaps one of the most loved basketball players of all time. He’s also a cheater — not on the court, thankfully, but definitely off of it. He allegedly had an affair with Karla Knafel and promised her money to keep it quiet.

Jordan contests this affair, and strongly denies it being one of the reasons he and his ex-wife Juanita divorced. Even though it was the most expensive celebrity divorce of all time, Jordan is still beloved by many; just maybe not Juanita.

Soccer pretty boy Olivier Giroud is a French sight to behold. He’s played on multiple teams and is a huge star in the sport. He’s also a cheater, but not an adulterer, according to his arguments over semantics.

He met an American model in a hotel room the night before a big game, and denied it at first, but ultimately confessed on Twitter. But, the biggest part is that he insisted he “made a mistake but did not commit adultery!” We aren’t really sure that’s any better, Olivier.

Former professional boxer Oscar de la Hoya was photographed wearing a risque outfit, which showed everyone how he’d been messing around with someone else. He and his team denied the claims and launched a smear campaign against the girl, and then settled a lawsuit behind closed doors.

He’s since admitted that it was indeed him in the photos, but we’re not sure we forgive him for publicly shaming a girl when she was telling the truth. The public seems okay with him, though, as he’s planning a comeback from retirement.

Imagine you’ve been married to your high school sweetheart for years. You tell her you’re going to your London home for work, just to never come back and file for divorce, all without actually speaking to your wife. Shocked? Us too, but that’s exactly what soccer player Patrice Evra did.

His wife found out about the affair because the model Patrice was seeing posted a photo from the family’s home gym in London. The sad thing is, it wasn’t even the first time he’d had an affair, yet his wife stuck by his side until then.

Paul George, aka PG-13, is a seven-time NBA All-Star and also apparently someone who enjoys tension. He was dating Callie Rivers when he cheated with a stripper. That’s bad enough, but then he started playing for the Los Angeles Clippers.

The coach of the Clippers at the time was none other than Doc Rivers, famous sports coach and father of Callie Rivers. Whether Doc held a grudge, one can only guess, but it definitely couldn’t have been fun at first.

Lots of people accidentally text the wrong person. Fewer accidentally post something to social media, but it does happen from time to time. Even fewer accidentally post a very condemning private message to their Twitter, like Ray Allen.

The Basketball Hall of Fame member tweeted something very explicit that was meant to be a private message to his mistress. He claimed he had been hacked when he realized he outed himself, but we don’t buy it. His wife probably didn’t either.

We aren’t here to talk about the fact that Reggie Bush’s wife, Lilit Avagyan, looks a heck of a lot like ex Kim Kardashian. No, he’s made the list for cheating on Lilit with a waitress in Miami and getting her pregnant.

He supposedly offered her money to terminate the pregnancy, but she didn’t take it and decided to sue him instead. At the end of the day, Lilit didn’t deserve to be disrespected like that.

Royston Drenthe, a professional soccer player from the Netherlands, is a person of questionable character. His wild lifestyle cut his soccer career short. One such bad choice was getting intimate with a Spanish model.

He apparently has seven kids with four different women, so we aren’t even sure who it was he was cheating on. But, one thing is certain — no one likes to be cheated on. Maybe he’ll have better luck with love when he’s older, but we aren’t counting on it.

Ryan Giggs may be considered one of the greatest soccer players of all time, but if there were an award for worst brother ever, it would go to him. Not only did he have an affair with his brother’s wife, but it carried on for eight years!

That seems like plenty of time to realize you’re doing something wrong. But, rumor has it Giggs still hasn’t even apologized, and it wasn’t even the last time he cheated on his wife.

Seyi Ajirotutu, a former Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver, married Autumn in 2012. Autumn always spoke of how faithful her husband was on the reality show WAGS. His side chick got annoyed and shared text messages between them with a gossip blog, putting him on blast to the world.

That didn’t deter his wife, although they did eventually divorce in 2020. Seyi is now the CEO of a fitness company, so the exposure may have done him more good than harm.

Shaquille O’Neal, better known as Shaq, and his wife Shaunie got a divorce in 2009. At the time no one knew why, but it’s since been revealed it was due to multiple affairs. Their phones got switched one day and Shaunie discovered messages from girl after girl, exposing Shaq as a cheater.

He now recognizes it’s his fault, and said, “In my mind I never did it disrespectfully” — as if that makes it better. There isn’t really a respectful way to cheat, Shaq!

Thierry Henry was a huge star in the early 2000s as one of the best players in the history of Arsenal F.C. and a beautiful wife. He dumped his marriage down the drain, however, after his wife found inappropriate messages between him and a makeup artist in Barcelona.

Fortunately for Henry, he still had a super successful career and he’s now helping coach in Belgium, so all he lost from his affair was his marriage and a little bit of respect.

Anyone who was alive in 2009 knows two things about Tiger Woods — that he’s a major golf champion, and that he went through a massive cheating scandal. After his wife found texts on his phone, she chased him out of the house with a golf club and he then crashed his car into a fire hydrant.

He supposedly had over 120 affairs during his marriage, which has got to be a record, although we’re not sure if it’s a record he’d be happy to break.

Tony Parker, a former NBA point guard, seemed like he had it all. He had a successful career and he was married to the beloved Eva Longoria. But, that marriage ended when it turned out he’d been unfaithful.

It broke Longoria’s heart, but she wished nothing for the best for him and didn’t think he was a bad person. We aren’t sure we are as forgiving as she is. At least Tony’s off in France now, working with a team there.

Poor Khloé. We previously addressed how she’d been burned by Lamar Odom. She’s now with Tristan Thompson, but unfortunately not much has changed.

There are at least three confirmed instances of Tristan cheating on Khloé, one of which turned into a huge scandal because it was with her sister Kylie’s best friend, Jordyn Woods. Khloé just can’t catch a break.

Wayne Rooney is a Manchester United soccer icon, but legend also has it that he cheated on his wife with not one — but two women at the same time, while his wife was pregnant with their first child. That’s right. Rooney had a threesome, and his wife definitely wasn’t one of the other two members.

Coleen has said that she forgives him, but it wasn’t acceptable. While we can’t say whether she should be forgiving him, we definitely agree that what he did was absolutely unacceptable.

Paul lo Duca may have been a great catcher for the MLB, but he also caught lots of attention when he allegedly had several flings with 19-year-old girls. On top of a supposed gambling addiction, it was a lot to take in.

He and his ex-wife Sonia divorced, and Paul has since shifted his attention from baseball to horse racing. His career haunts him, though, since he got sued for defamation against an MLB umpire.

Whether or not you agree that NASCAR is a sport, it captures the attention of millions of fans every year. A big name in the NASCAR world is Jeff Gordon. He and his wife Brooke were a very popular couple, as she was involved in NASCAR before she met him.

However, their bliss didn’t last long. A model told Playboy that she had an 11-month affair with the driver, causing Brooke to file for divorce. He didn’t lose many fans, though, and is now chairman at Hendrick Motorsports.

Hulk Hogan and his ex-wife Linda grew very popular when they appeared on their reality TV show, Hogan Knows Best. But things quickly dissolved into an angry, bitter divorce battle when it was revealed that Hulk was having an affair.

To make matters worse, it was with one of his daughter Brooke’s close friends. Hulk claims the divorce came as a surprise, and they have been fighting against each other ever since, even though it’s been over a decade.

The year is 2008. “Viva la Vida” by Coldplay hits all the radio stations and becomes an instant success, and Brett Favre makes a big mistake. He sends suggestive messages and photos to someone who’s definitely not his wife, Deanna.

At the time, Deanna said her faith would get her through it, yet he has had several other alleged transgressions since then. How many times will she stick up for him before she decides that enough is enough? Only Deanna knows.

Tiki Barber played football for the New York Giants, but he’s also a giant jerk when it comes to how he left his first wife. She was pregnant with their daughter, and he left her for a girl he was having an affair with.

While he and Traci Lynn Johnson (his new wife) are still together today, it’s really messed up to leave your wife for another woman when she’s about to have your child. He even lost his broadcasting contract due to the scandal.

Jason Kidd is currently the coach of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team and a former NBA point guard. He has a long history riddled with explosive rants and violent episodes, which apparently included against his own wife.

He denies the claims, but with his history of outbursts on the court, one has to wonder if she was telling the truth. He cheated on her multiple times as well, because why else would he be on this list?

Oliver Kahn is extremely important to the soccer team Bayern Munich’s history. He played for them for a long time, and he’s now the CEO of the team as of 2021.

Like several others on this list, Oliver Kahn had the gall to leave a very pregnant wife for another woman — in this case, a younger girl. His wife divorced him, and his relationship with the girl went south. His personal life definitely isn’t as successful as his professional one.