2023 will be a year Joel Embiid will never forget. The Philadelphia 76ers star got married to his longtime girlfriend Anne de Paula in Southhampton, New York last weekend. The couple has been together since 2018 and shares a son, Arthur, who was born in 2020. On Tuesday, de Paula shared images of the wedding on Instagram.
“We are meant for each other,” de Paula wrote in the caption. In another post, de Paula shared portraits from the wedding which featured guests who were in attendance. “Can’t get over these photos/memories,” she wrote in the caption. “There is so many more but here are some of my favs.”
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Embiid and de Paula first met through a mutual friend in New York City in 2018. “It started off as a beautiful friendship,” de Paula said in a 2021 interview with ESPN. “We FaceTimed every day for a while. … He just has this personality where he wants to motivate you. His friends, his family and now with Arthur — he pushes all of us to be the best of ourselves. That’s the type of person you want to have around.”
De Paula, 28, has appeared in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue, making her debut in 2017. She is from Brazil and grew up playing soccer. “I loved sports, but I also liked this girly version of myself. I wasn’t popular in school. I wasn’t successful with the boys,” she told Fox News, per PEOPLE. “They never really looked at me like a girl because I was always playing with them … So I just started doing more and more photos until my mom sent me to an agency at 13. So she was the one who got me into it!”
Embiid, 29, has been with the 76ers since being selected by the team No. 3 overall in the 2014 NBA Draft. He had his best season in 2022-23, averaging 33.1 points and 10.2 rebounds per game. Embiid was named to the All-NBA First Team and was named NBA MVP for his work this past season. In his career, Embiid was selected to the All-Star team six times, selected to the All-NBA Second Team four times and has been the league’s scoring champion the last two years.
