Despite what fans may like to think, teammates aren’t always the best of friends. Keep in mind that they’re co-workers, and not everyone is buddy-buddy with their co-workers. However, teammates must respect each other, which means there are certain lines that you can’t cross. Needless to say, one of those lines is sleeping with the spouse or partner of your teammate.
Yet, there are many examples of athletes who crossed that line and had an affair (sometimes allegedly) with the wife or girlfriend of one of their teammates. Let’s take a closer look at some of these instances and the potential fallout of each.
Honorable Mention: Delonte West
If it’s an unwritten rule that teammates should mess around with one another’s wives and girlfriends, it’s beyond unwritten that the same principle applies to other family members, including mothers. Apparently, nobody told West, allegedly. In 2010, there was a rumor that West had a relationship with LeBron James’ mom Gloria. As the rumor started to spread, both James and West denied that it was true. Nevertheless, it’s the kind of rumor that’s hard to ignore, whether it was true or not.
Amidst the rumors, LeBron didn’t look like himself in the playoffs. As a result, the Cavs lost in the conference semifinals in Cleveland’s last chance to win a title before LeBron went to Miami. In 2012, West set the record straight by saying that no such affair happened. However, it was surely one of the craziest rumors to ever hit the NBA.
DeMarco Murray
Unlike a lot of the athletes on this list, Murray was a young and stupid college kid when he made his transgression. During his college career at Oklahoma, Murray had an affair with the wife of Brennan Clay, who was also a running back at Oklahoma. Clay didn’t have a standout career the way Murray did, although he did serve as a mentor to Murray while they were in college.
Apparently, Murray repaid his mentor by sleeping with his wife. For a little while, the two were able to cover up their affair. However, Clay was looking at one of his wife’s old cell phones and came across some incriminating text messages. That’s when he found out that his old college teammate had fooled around with his wife.
Tony Parker
In the early days of Parker’s relationship with actress Eva Longoria, the two seemed like the perfect couple. Frankly, who among us didn’t have fantasies of being married to Longoria back then? But their marriage ended after five years amidst reports of Parker’s infidelity. Imagine, having the audacity to cheat on someone like Longoria.
The kicker is that Parker had an affair with Erin Barry, who was the wife of Brent Barry. Parker and Barry were teammates with the Spurs from 2004 to 2008, winning two NBA championships together. However, Parker had no problem crossing that line, ending both marriages and forcing Barry to opt out of his contract with the Spurs so he wouldn’t have to play with Parker.
Pavel Bure
While there isn’t a full, unbiased account of these proceedings, it seems as if Bure and Russian teammate Sergei Fedorov were involved in a bit of a love triangle for a few years with tennis star Anna Kournikova. It might be worth noting that back when this happened, Kournikova was still a teenager with both Bure and Fedorov a least a decade older than her.
As it allegedly happened, Bure and Kournikova met in 1999 when she had already been romantically linked to Fedorov. In 2000, a scandalous photograph of Bure and Kournikova led to reports that they were engaged, which both denied. Yet, somehow Kournikova and Fedorov got married in 2001, only to divorce in 2003. Only the three of them know the exact timeline, but it seems reasonable that there was some cheating or suspicious behavior going on with this triangle of stars.
John Terry
If you take away his off-field issues, Terry is one of the most decorated English soccer players of all time. However, his legacy is tarnished by legal problems, instances of racial abuse, and an infamous affair with model Vanessa Perroncel, who was the girlfriend of Wayne Bridge, a teammate of Terry’s with both his club team Chelsea and the English national team.
While Terry and Perroncel both deny it happened, the affair allegedly lasted four months, and for a brief time, a court in England prevented the media from reporting it because of a super-injunction. However, the details eventually came to light and Terry was briefly stripped of his captaincy of the national team. Bridge then left Chelsea and took himself out of the national team picture for the 2010 World Cup because Terry was still on the team. When the two played each other for the first time following the affair, Bridge dissed Terry in the pre-game handshake line.
Paul Terry
Perhaps John Terry can blame the affair with his teammate’s girlfriend on the example set by his older brother Paul. While he played mostly in the lower divisions in England and never reached the level of his younger brother, Paul Terry was a professional soccer player. He also had a hard time staying away from his teammate’s spouses.
One year before John’s affair with Bridge’s girlfriend, Paul had an affair with the fiancé of Dale Roberts. The two played together for one season with the club Rushden & Diamonds. After finding out about his fiancé cheating on him with a teammate, Roberts died by suicide.
Derek Fisher
It’s certainly off-limits to have a relationship with the wife or girlfriend of a teammate. But there’s also a blurry line when it comes to the ex of a teammate. That was the situation with Fisher and Matt Barnes, who played together with the Lakers for a couple of seasons. During that time, Barnes was married to Gloria Govan. They didn’t have a perfect marriage, although they did have a pair of twins together.
A few years after Fisher and Barnes were teammates (after Barnes and Govan had gotten divorced) the two ex-teammates were involved in a physical altercation, not so coincidentally, at Govan’s house. Barnes didn’t like that Fisher and Govan had been seeing each other prior to Barnes and Govan getting divorced. But for what it’s worth, Fisher and Govan ended up getting married in 2021.
Colin Kaepernick
Long before the NFL more or less banished Kaepernick because he had the audacity to take a stance on social issues, he created problems in the San Francisco locker room by allegedly having a relationship with a teammate’s girlfriend. That teammate was linebacker Aldon Smith, who previously had a relationship with radio and MTV host named Nessa Diab.
Kaepernick and Nessa dated after she broke up with Smith. But there were rumors that the two started seeing each other while Nessa was still dating Smith and while Kaepernick and Smith were still teammates with the 49ers. To be fair, Kaepernick and Nessa have stayed together, welcoming a child in 2022. But the start of their relationship definitely falls into a gray area.
Rafael Palmeiro
Despite collecting over 500 home runs and 3,000 hits, Palmeiro is not in the Hall of Fame because of his connection to steroids. But using performance-enhancing drugs wasn’t the only instance of cheating during his career. Throughout his career, there were rumors of Palmeiro sleeping with the wives or girlfriends of several teammates, almost as if the significant others of teammates were his type.
The most famous affair came during the 1988 season when he was playing with the Cubs. This was early in Palmeiro’s career and the first time he was named an all-star. While largely unconfirmed, there were rumors during the season that Palmeiro was having an affair with the wife of longtime Chicago second baseman Ryne Sandberg. The hostility in the clubhouse became too much, essentially forcing the Cubs to trade Palmeiro the following offseason.
Avisail Garcia
While he later became an all-star with the White Sox, many fans forget that Garcia first got to the majors with the Tigers in 2012. However, during the midway point of the 2013 season when Garcia was still a young player, the Tigers were able to involve Garcia in a three-team that sent him to the White Sox. Given the rumors of Garcia having an affair with the wife of teammate Prince Fielder, the timing of the trade might not be a coincidence.
It must be mentioned that these rumors have never been confirmed. However, Fielder and his wife filed for divorce in May 2013, less than two months before the Tigers traded Garcia. While they reconciled the following year, there were also rumors of a clubhouse fight between Fielder and Garcia. The 2013 season was also one of the worst of Fielder’s career, adding to the circumstantial evidence surrounding this affair.
Golden Tate
Tate spent the first four seasons of his career in Seattle and looked to have a promising career with the Seahawks. He was even part of their Super Bowl-winning team during the 2013 season. But after winning the Super Bowl, the Seahawks decided not to re-sign Tate. That allegedly happened because quarterback Russell Wilson told the Seahawks he didn’t want Tate around.
Why did Wilson want Tate out of Seattle? Apparently, Wilson found out that Tate and his wife Ashton Meem were having an affair. Tate has always denied this, claiming that his girlfriend was best friends with Meem. But the timing of Wilson’s divorce of his high school sweetheart in April 2014 is certainly suspicious. Of course, nowadays, Tate is married, Wilson is part of a power couple with Ciara, and Meem is out of the public spotlight.
Fritz Peterson & Mike Kekich
This might be the weirdest story of teammates getting involved with one another’s wives. During spring training in 1973, Peterson announced that he had left his wife and family for a new family. That family happened to be Kekich’s wife and daughters. Peterson and Kekich had been teammates with the Yankees since 1969 and somehow Peterson had replaced Kekich in his own family.
But in the twist of the century, Kekich soon announced that he was now living with Peterson’s wife and his sons. While the two pitchers declined to use the term wife swap, that is essentially what happened. Somehow, the swap was made without any hurt feelings. Unfortunately, while Peterson and Kekich’s former wife Susanne stayed married and lived happily ever after, Kekich and Peterson’s former wife Marilyn broke up not long after the two couples swapped partners. Did you get all of that straight?
Brendan Shanahan
Shanahan is a Hall of Famer who won a few Stanley Cups with the Red Wings. But before he got to Detroit, Shanahan spent a few seasons in St. Louis. But during the lockout-shortened season in the mid-90s, he found himself with a little extra time on his hands. How did Shanahan spend that time during the 1994-95 season?
Well, it turns out he had an affair with the wife of teammate Craig Janney. When the team found out what was happening, the Blues decided to trade Janney with Shanahan being traded not long after either. In the end, Janney and his wife split up and she later married Shanahan, so something good came out of this betrayal.
Thibaut Courtois
European soccer stars typically have no problem attracting women. That’s why there seems to be no need to get involved with the girlfriend of a teammate (and perhaps a friend). However, Courtois had no problem getting together with Caroline Lijnen, who was the girlfriend of Kevin De Bruyne, a longtime teammate of Courtois with the Belgium National Team. As the story goes, De Bruyne cheated on Lijnen, so her way of getting even was to cheat on him with one of his teammates.
Of course, if he knew that Lijnen was just trying to hurt De Bruyne, Courtois didn’t have to go along with it. Nevertheless, the affair happened in 2012 and became public in 2014. Yet, Courtois and De Bruyne have managed to remain teammates on the national team for more than a decade with De Bruyne writing in his autobiography: “Although I still cannot believe what Courtois has done, we continue to work together professionally.”
John Harkes
The U.S. was literally the worst team at the 1998 World Cup. Among the problems that the team faced in that tournament was playing without Harkes, who was previously named Captain for Life, only to be cut from the team just a couple of months before the World Cup. At the time, it seemed like a crazy decision and had no rhyme or reason other than claims that Harkes and leadership issues.
More than a decade later, the public learned that Harkes had an affair with the wife of teammate Eric Wynalda. Oddly enough, Harkes later claimed that he wanted Harkes on the World Cup team because it deprived the U.S. of one of its best players. However, that doesn’t mean that Wynalda doesn’t still feel animosity toward his former teammate.
Dave Martinez
As we know, Rafael Palmeiro had a problem when it came to not having affairs with the wives of his teammates, including the wife of Ryne Sandberg. But Sandberg’s wife isn’t an innocent party. In fact, there were unconfirmed rumors that she had multiple affairs with her husband’s teammates over the years, including Martinez.
Martinez actually played with the Cubs at the same time Pelmeiro did. Both made their debut during the second half of the 1986 season but would have short tenures on the North Side of Chicago. While the Cubs traded Palmeiro after the 1988 season, Martinez was traded in the middle of the 1988 season. According to the rumors, Sandberg’s wife must have had an affair with both of them sometime between the end of the 1986 season and the middle of the 1988 season.
Mauro Icardi
It’s one thing to have an affair with the wife or girlfriend of a teammate, but it’s even worse to break up a family. Yet, that’s what Icardi did to Maxi Lopez. The two Argentines became teammates at Italian club Sampdoria in 2012 when Lopez was married to Wanda Nara. The couple even had three kids together. But that didn’t stop Nara and Icardi from getting together, especially since Nara also accused Lopez of infidelity.
After Lopez and Nara officially called it quits after the affair, she married Icardi and they had two kids together, giving Nara five kids from two fathers who are both pro soccer players. Unfortunately, Nara and Icardi divorced in 2022, one year after Nara implied Icardi had been unfaithful. While Lopez is now retired, he and Icardi always refused to shake hands whenever their teams played one another.
Jordan Ayew
Since 2012, Ayew and Afriyie Acquah have played together for the Ghana national team. The two even played in the 2014 World Cup together. But that bond apparently meant nothing to Ayew. In the summer of 2015, a tape leaked that let the world know about an affair between Ayew and Acquah’s wife Amanda.
Apparently, the affair lasted for four years. Keep in mind that Ayew was already married to his wife Denise Acquah, who coincidentally has the same last name as Ayew’s scorned teammate. Ayew is still married to Denise and the couple has two kids. Also, while Afriye Acquah is not a prominent member of the Ghana national team the way Ayew is, the two have continued to be teammates despite Ayew’s transgression.
Shannon Brown
Not only were Gasol and Brown teammates for a few seasons but they also won back-to-back NBA championships with the Lakers. That should have bonded the two forever in a positive way. However, around this time Gasol broke off his engagement with fiancée Silvia Lopez Castro amidst rumors that one of Gasol’s teammates contributed to the end of the relationship.
It was later uncovered that Brown had an affair with Castro during the 2010-11 season. Not so coincidentally, Gasol had terrible numbers during the playoffs that season, preventing the Lakers from winning three in a row. After the season, the Lakers declined Brown’s option and made no effort to re-sign him after learning of his affair with Gasol’s fiancé. Oddly enough, this happened early in Brown’s relationship with R&B singer Monica. Brown and Monica eventually married but divorced in 2019.
Corey Fisher
Right around the time of the 2010 NCAA Tournament, the Villanova Wildcats endured a rumor that Fisher, one of the team’s stars, impregnated the girlfriend of Scottie Reynolds, another one of their stars. While it’s been difficult to confirm whether this is true or the exact details, the animosity allegedly boiled over into a physical fight between the two on the eve of the Big Dance.
Again, we don’t know for sure, but the circumstantial evidence is impressive. In mid-February, the Wildcats were 22-2. However, they lost five of their last seven games, albeit with three of those losses coming against ranked teams. In the first round of the NCAA Tournament, Fisher and Reynolds were removed from the starting lineup and came off the bench-presumably following their fight. Villanova needed overtime to beat no. 15 seed Robert Morris and then lost in the second round to St. Mary’s. Surely, there’s a reason for the team’s late-season collapse.
Deshaun Williams
A few years before Villanova’s implosion, the Syracuse Orange experienced a similar situation late in the 2002 season. As the story goes, Williams, the team’s second-leading scorer that year, impregnated the girlfriend of Preston Shumpert, the team’s leading scorer. More than two decades later, there are players on that team who say they don’t know the full story. However, Williams and Shumpert could barely look at each other late in the season, much less play together.
In mid-January, Syracuse was 16-2 and a top-10 team. However, they went 4-9 down the stretch and missed the NCAA Tournament. While they reached the NIT semifinals, it was a small consolation after a once-promising season. After the season, Shumpert graduated while Williams transferred, keeping the details of that vicious rumor to themselves. However, it worked out for Jim Boeheim and company, as Syracuse reloaded the following season behind Carmelo Anthony and won the national championship.
Shaquille O’Neal
Technically, Shaq was never teammates with Gilbert Arenas. However, NBA players tend to have a brotherhood with one another that should prevent any player from interfering with the personal life of someone else in the league. But if there was any code in place among NBA players, it was broken in 2011 when he had an affair with Laura Govan, who had a longtime relationship with Arenas from 2002 to 2014.
As most fans know, Shaq has had plenty of relationships over the years, so it’s not a huge surprise that he would fool around with someone else’s girlfriend. The public found out about Shaq and Govan after some inappropriate emails were discovered. Govan tried to claim they were fake emails, but nobody was buying it. Shaq’s wife, in particular, wasn’t buying it because she filed for divorce right around the time these rumors started popping up.
Michael Ballack
Ballack is one of the leading scorers and most celebrated players in the history of German soccer. Objectively, he’s a good-looking guy and never had much of a problem with the ladies. But that got Ballack into a little bit of trouble in 2007, not long after he left German club Bayern Munich for English club Chelsea.
Keep in mind that in 2007, Ballack and his longtime girlfriend Simone Lambe had three kids together. However, Christian Lell, a teammate of Ballack’s at Bayern Munich, accused him of having an affair with his girlfriend Daniella Aumann. Ballack initially survived the rumors, although he and Lambe divorced in 2012. Regarding the accusations, Lell said of the former German captain: “Ballack enters into other people’s private lives and ruins them without further thought.”
Mesut Ozil
As if it wasn’t bad enough having Michael Ballack sleep with your girlfriend, Christian Lell had the same problem years later with Ozil, another decorated member of the German national team. Ozil represented Germany in three World Cups, including the 2014 World Cup, which the Germans won.
A few months after Germany’s triumph in that World Cup, Lell accused Ozil of having an affair with his girlfriend Melanie Rickinger. Lell claimed that his relationship with Rickinger ended because of her affair with Ozil. He went so far as to leak text messages that Rickinger and Ozil exchanged. Rickinger responded by suing Lell for theft of data, making a messy situation even messier.
Joe Horn
Some fans will remember Horn for a touchdown celebration that involved pulling a cell phone from underneath the uprights. While slightly humorous, that celebration does point to Horn being a me-first player. There’s even more evidence of that in the form of rumors that he was involved with the wife of teammate Willie Roaf.
Following the 2000 season, there were rampant rumors that Horn had an affair with teammate Roaf’s wife. On top of that, there were rumors that Horn was the biological father of one of Roaf’s kids as a result of the affair. Roaf has publicly denied the second part of that. But it remains to be disproven that Horn and Roaf’s wife had an affair.
Jason Richardson
Richardson spent parts of three seasons with the Suns during the time that Nash was the face of the franchise. On the court, Richardson provided an excellent complementary player. But off the court, Richardson allegedly had an affair with Nash’s wife. Sadly, the story is even worse than an athlete having an affair with a teammate’s wife.
The rumors of Richardson hooking up with Nash’s wife were largely substantiated by Nash and his wife separating a few months before the birth of their third child. When the child was born, Nash had reason to believe that Richardson was the father and not him. While that’s never been proven to be the case, Nash still filed for divorce that same day. Meanwhile, the Suns were quick to trade Richardson to the Magic rather than force him and Nash to continue to share the court.