I 100% respect the way Dwyane Wade speaks about his children, including his recent conversation about his transgender daughter. It’s so important for a man of Wade’s profile to talk about these issues and he’s a great role model for good parenting. That being said, I do think it’s a little bit interesting that Wade’s messy personal life has been somewhat whitewashed by his current image of a dutiful husband to Gabrielle Union and a loving, supportive father. I remember the stories about his divorce from Siohvaughn Funches and their huge custody battle, and how Funches always accused Gabrielle of being the mistress-turned-jumpoff-turned-official. I also remember the very shady story about Wade fathering a child with another woman back in 2013. Wade and Gabrielle got engaged in early December 2013, then a week later, Wade announced that he was expecting a child with another woman, and that the hookup happened while he and Gabrielle were on a break earlier that year. It sounded like a cover story. But Wade is sort of sticking with the cover story, after all these years:

Dwyane Wade is opening up about a challenging time in his life. In a new, wide-ranging ESPN documentary, D. Wade: Life Unexpected, the 38-year-old former NBA star reveals how he felt telling his then-girlfriend, Gabrielle Union, that he had fathered a child with someone else. Wade, who began dating Union in 2008, fathered his 6-year-old son, Xavier, in 2013, when he and Union were on a break. At the time, Wade was already dad to Zaire, 18 and Zaya, 12, as well as guardian to his nephew, Dahveon, 18. Union and Wade, who tied the knot in 2014, have since welcomed a daughter, 1-year-old Kaavia.

“I had a child with someone else and I had to tell her. Hardest thing I’ve ever had to do is man up and tell Gabrielle Union that I’ve had a child with somebody else,” he says in the documentary. “I couldn’t sleep. I wasn’t eating. When you hold something in that you know is going to come out and you have this information and you know it’s gonna f**k somebody’s life up, that you care about, that you love, if it don’t hurt you, then you’re not human… Me and Gab just went through something that you never want to go through and we still came out of it.”

The documentary, which features home movies of never-before-seen moments, also delves into Wade’s early days with Union, who, Wade’s manager reveals, he had posters of in college. Wade notes that his kids always loved Union and even helped him pop the question in 2013. “She wasn’t just marrying me, she was marrying all this baggage,” he says of his decision to include his kids in the proposal.

The couple decided to try for a baby of their own, but were plagued by miscarriages. Eventually, they welcomed Kaavia through a surrogate, an experience that led Wade to retire from basketball in 2019.

“That was my push away from the game. It was time. There just came a point when I had to look in the mirror and say, ‘What more do you want out of this?'” he says.

[From ET]

A few years ago, I saw an ESPN segment (maybe it was part of a 30 for 30 documentary or something) about Wade’s absolutely horrendous childhood in Chicago and how remarkable it was that he even survived that, nevermind thrived and became the successful man he is today. My point is that you can believe everything all at once: he cheated on his first wife with Gabrielle, he fathered a child with another woman while he was (probably) with Gabrielle, and he’s an amazing, hands-on father who is trying to give all his kids the loving, supportive, amazing home life he never had.

Photos courtesy of WENN.