Aaron Rodgers has been surprisingly candid about his personal life lately, and his latest revelation is a doozy. The Steelers quarterback admitted that he met his wife, Brittani, way back in 2017—long before his well-publicized romance with Danica Patrick ever began.
During an appearance on the Not Just Football podcast, Rodgers shared that he knew Brittani was special from the moment they met. The only problem? She was heading back to Europe at the time, and he let her go without putting up a fight.
“I met my wife in 2017,” Rodgers said. “At the time, she was leaving the states and going back to Europe and my biggest regret is not begging her to stay or just, like, proposing right there.”
Instead, Rodgers spent the next several years navigating a series of high-profile relationships, including with Danica Patrick and Shailene Woodley. He even got engaged to Woodley before calling it off a year later. But in hindsight, Rodgers says those relationships were doomed from the start—because he had already met the one.
“That sent me into a tailspin,” Rodgers admitted. “I was emotionally unavailable for those seven or eight years because I’d met the person that was going to change my life. After that, I just poured everything into football.”
It’s a startling confession from a quarterback who has often kept his personal life under wraps. But Rodgers has been more open recently, even detailing his split from Woodley and his thoughts on fatherhood.
Rodgers and Brittani eventually tied the knot in a secret ceremony in 2025, and he’s kept her identity largely private. Now, with his final NFL season on the horizon, Rodgers says he’s ready to start a family after the 2026 campaign.
“I intend to start a family with my wife soon after the 2026 season is over and work on becoming a father,” he said recently.
He’s also mended fences with his estranged family, so life appears to be on an upswing as his playing days wind down. It’s a far cry from the emotional turmoil he described during those “emotionally unavailable” years.
For now, Rodgers is focused on leading the Steelers, but it’s clear his heart has been in the right place all along—even if it took him a while to act on it.
