Aaron Rodgers is opening up about his relationship with fame as the NFL quarterback admitted in his new Netflix docuseries that he “hated” being thrust into the spotlight by both his career on the field and the women he dated off the field.
Rodgers, 41, said in his new series, Aaron Rodgers: Enigma, that after winning a Super Bowl in 2010 and his NFL MVP Award in 2011, he found himself more in the public eye than he had expected.
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“I always find it interesting when people say, in reference to the off-the-field attention, ‘Well, this is what you signed up for,’” Rodgers said. “I say f—k that, I never signed up for that.”
He continued, “I signed up for football because I love the game and I got great at it because I’m hyper-competitive and super-motivated. But there’s this whole other part that comes with it that’s a lot of great stuff and a lot of f—ing weird stuff.”
“I definitely hated it at first – like, really despised it,” Rodgers said about his fame. “I enjoyed my private life. I enjoyed being able to go places. But from Super Bowl MVP, MVP, State Farm commercials, that got a little bit more difficult.”
When it comes to the athlete’s reaction to having paparazzi following him at the height of his career Rodgers confessed, “I didn’t do myself any favors with some of the girls I dated after that that were in the public eye,” as photos of former girlfriends Olivia Munn and Danica Patrick, as well as ex-fiancée Shailene Woodley, show on screen.
Rodgers and Munn, 44, dated between 2014 and 2017. Following their breakup, the former Green Bay Packers quarterback started dating NASCAR star Patrick, 42, and the two were together from 2018 until 2020. That same year, Rodgers began dating Woodley, 33, and the two announced their engagement in 2021. A year later, the Big Little Lies actress and football player called off their engagement.
Rodgers dated Munn, 44, from 2014 until the couple split in 2017. The former Green Bay Packers quarterback then began dating Patrick, the 42-year-old retired NASCAR star, from 2018 until they called it quits in 2020. Rodgers began dating Woodley, 33, in late 2020 before the couple announced their engagement in 2021. But Rodgers and Woodley called off their plans to marry a year later.
Earlier this month, Woodley told Outside magazine that thinking about her relationship with Rodgers “always makes [her] cry.” She continued that the “really awful, traumatic thing” that happened “in early 2022” led her into a deep depression for six months.
“I felt like I lost my soul, my self, my happiness, my joy. I really understood depression and anxiety and, like, complete soul detachment,” said the Divergent star, adding that she stayed in a “toxic situation” at the time because “empathy kind of kept me in this loop of feeling everything for everyone.”
Aaron Rodgers: Enigma is now streaming on Netflix.
