Key Takeaways
- Aaron Rodgers rejected Danica Patrick’s account of their 2020 breakup, saying the relationship had already deteriorated and lacked intimacy before they split.
- Rodgers said Patrick knew where they stood after he declined to buy a Malibu home with her, challenging her claims that the breakup was sudden and their relationship emotionally abusive.
- The Steelers quarterback also accused former partners of invoking his name for attention and contrasted those public disputes with his private marriage to Brittani, whom he credits with supporting his final NFL season.
Aaron Rodgers is firing back at Danica Patrick—and he has a dramatically different account of how their relationship fell apart.
During an appearance on teammate Cam Heyward’s Not Just Football podcast, the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback directly challenged Patrick’s previous claims that their two-year relationship was emotionally abusive and ended abruptly. Rodgers said the relationship had been deteriorating well before their 2020 breakup, describing an unhappy home life with little intimacy.
“I dated Danica. She had just retired. She was depressed and not fun to be around,” Rodgers said. “But I didn’t leave her because I was trying to be there and be a good partner. Then it was going a certain direction, obviously. There was no intimacy; there was nothing.”
Rodgers also disputed Patrick’s contention that she was blindsided.
According to the four-time MVP, a decision involving a Malibu home made their problems impossible to ignore. Patrick asked whether Rodgers wanted to purchase the property together, and he declined.
“She said, ‘You know what that means then?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, that’s the way things are going,’” Rodgers recalled. Patrick subsequently suggested counseling, which Rodgers said they pursued before the COVID-19 pandemic left them quarantining together.
That account clashes sharply with what Patrick told Sage Steele in 2025. The former NASCAR driver described their breakup as “sudden” and said the relationship had badly damaged her confidence.
“Because the nature of the relationship was emotionally abusive, so that wore me down to nothing,” Patrick said. “Everything was torn to bits.”
She also accused Rodgers of leaving a “trail of blood” behind him in relationships.
Rodgers rejected that characterization and took a broader swipe at former partners who have publicly discussed him.
“No one cares what they have to say until they say my name,” he told Heyward. “I dated two women who nobody gives a f*ck about unless they drop my name—and they like to say their version of the history of what actually happened.”
Rodgers did not identify both women in that remark, but his romantic history has been unusually public. In addition to Patrick, he previously dated Olivia Munn and was engaged to Shailene Woodley. Woodley has also spoken about the emotional aftermath of a difficult relationship without always naming Rodgers directly.
His current relationship couldn't be more different publicly. Rodgers says he is married to a woman named Brittani, who has stayed almost completely out of the spotlight. Earlier this year, he joked on The Pat McAfee Show that staying attractive to his wife was part of his motivation for keeping fit, saying, “I want my wife to want to f*ck me all the time.”
He has been considerably more earnest about her elsewhere, calling Brittani “the most incredible wife” and describing her as a stabilizing force in his life. In July, Rodgers even revealed that she helped convince him to play one final season with the Pittsburgh Steelers.
“I talked to the wife and she said, ‘You can do one more year,’” Rodgers said.
