Dwyane Wade had a lot more on his mind a decade ago when he was helping the Miami Heat win multiple NBA championships. He had the difficult task of telling the woman who would later become his wife that he was having a child with someone else.
In an interview with Shannon Sharpe, Wade was asked the awkward question of whether it was more difficult to tell Gabrielle Union what had happened in his personal life or losing the NBA Finals.
“Way harder to have a conversation with my now-wife,” Wade said when asked to compare the two. “… You try to think of everything possible.
“… It’s all scary. One, the whole situation is scary enough. You’re a public figure. … But you know that this is gonna hurt someone that you’ve been building a relationship with and a life with, right?
“And no matter what people say on the outside or what people wanna think this and that, ultimately you gotta sit with you and you gotta sit with this person if this is who you gon’ be with. And I had to. I had to sit with my now-wife about this and have this conversation.”
Wade welcomed his son Xavier in 2013. The actress addressed the events in an essay for Time magazine in 2021, and the former Heat star previously discussed the matter in a documentary in 2020.
“I couldn’t have gotten through that moment without her sticking with me,” Wade said. “… We were in the playoffs, I think even going into the Finals, whatever year that was. Man, that was a rough time for me bro.”
The elder Wade was in the midst of four consecutive trips to the NBA Finals which started after LeBron James and Chris Bosh joined the Heat prior to the 2010-11 NBA season. The Heat lost the 2011 NBA Finals to the Dallas Mavericks before winning back-to-back titles with victories against the Oklahoma City Thunder and San Antonio Spurs.
The couple was married in August 2014, after the elder Wade and the Heat lost the NBA Finals to the Spurs. He and Union welcomed daughter Kaavia via surrogate in 2018.
The Wade family made news by moving out of Florida, with the three-time champion saying his family “would not be accepted or feel comfortable there.” The Hall of Famer’s daughter Zaya started to identify as a girl in 2020.
The former NBA star’s social awareness also reportedly has led some people to approach him about running for public office. He also joined the ownership group of the WNBA’s Chicago Sky, saying the role with his hometown team is a way to show another level of support for the league and its players.
The 41-year-old was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame this August after a 16-season NBA career that ended in 2019. He has continued to remain in the spotlight, and with honest interviews such as this recent one, it is clear to see he is willing to take on difficult topics in a variety of contexts.