Source: Neilson Barnard/ Getty Images Entertainment / Getty
Former NBA superstar Dwyane Wade is opening up about his failed marriage with high school sweetheart Siovaughn Funchess. In an upcoming ESPN documentary entitled “D. Wade: Life Unexpected.” Many may know that Siovaughn is the mother of D. Wade’s two oldest children, Zaire and Zaya. The couple was married back in 2002, but split up soon after.
Wade said in the documentary:
“Siohvaughn Funches was my high school girlfriend. Siohvaughn had her own car, she had a job, money, this and that. We started spending a lot of time together because it got me away from the noise and everything going on at my house.”
Wade goes on to say that their issues came to the surface when the couple was expecting their son Zaire during Wade’s sophomore year of college.
He added:
“I broke down. [I thought] my career, my life is over…Our relationship was rocky. We got together at 16 years old so we had a lot of differences and we didn’t know how to handle those. I wasn’t a big argument, fight type person because I grew up hearing my parents do that and I didn’t want that to happen to Zaire, so I would just not address it.”
When speaking about the divorce Wade goes into a bit more detail:
“My divorce was taking forever. She wound up having 13 different lawyers in the process. So every time you get a new lawyer, the case starts over. I’m having a hard time having a relationship with my kids, seeing my kids. A lot of times she would not bring them out and I would have to get the police involved to find her…It became ugly and nasty…My emotions were all over the place because on one hand, you want to celebrate a victory, but on the other end, no one wins. There’s no winner in a custody battle.”
He began dating Gabrielle Union shortly thereafter, and the two would go on to get married and have another child, Kaavia.
