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Most people who’ve kept tabs on Aaron Rodgers are likely aware he does not have a stellar relationship with the rest of his family. The QB has shied away from discussing that particular topic over the years, but he opened up in a documentary where he dropped some new info about his falling out with his brother Jordan and the episode of The Bachelorette that helped widen the divide.
Being one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL comes with plenty of perks, but there’s only so much you can do to prevent people from prying into your personal life when you’re subjected to that kind of spotlight—a reality Aaron Rodgers has become very familiar with over the course of his career.
The 41-year-old has been romantically linked to a few notable names over the years, including Olivia Munn, the actress who he started dating in 2014 before they split up a few years later. A biography that was published earlier this year asserted that relationship was responsible for some major drama between Rodgers and his parents, Ed and Darla, and that family feud was thrust into the forefront in 2016 when his brother Jordan ended up on The Bachelorette.
Jordan, who played QB at Vanderbilt prior to a short-lived NFL career where he never took a single snap, was one of the 26 men vying for the heart of Joelle “JoJo” Fletcher on the 12th season of The Bachelorette and ultimately won it by the time the romantic competition wrapped up.
The eighth episode saw JoJo and Jordan head back to his hometown of Chico, California to meet his parents and his brother Luke. The dinner table featured two empty chairs that served as a fairly obvious reference to the absence of Aaron and Munn, and Luke eventually informed her the missing sibling had a falling out with the family.
It took more than eight years, but the current Jets QB finally addressed that development in the Aaron Rodgers: Enigma documentary that dropped on Netflix on Tuesday.
He noted his rift with Jordan stemmed from “stuff from high school that kind of made me feel distant. Stuff in college, stuff post-college” and made it very clear it only deepened after he decided to appear on what he referred to as a ” bulls—t show.”
Rodgers noted he wasn’t asked to appear on The Bachelorette but would have turned down the invite if it had been extended, saying:
“They all agreed this was a good thing to do, to leave two empty chairs at a stupid dating show that my brother just went on to get famous—his words, not mine—that he ended up winning.
But a dinner that was during the season, I was never asked to go to. Not that I would’ve gone.”
He also said he’s open to repairing the fractured relationship with Jordan and the rest of the family at some point, adding, “I don’t want them to fail, to struggle, to have any strife or issues. I don’t wish any ill will on them at all.”