Steelers Now
Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who’s been estranged from his parents and close family for more than a decade, posted a series of photos on Instagram with his loved ones.
Rodgers captioned the post, “Another bonding week #fam.”
Rodgers stopped talking to his parents around 2014 due to conflicts over his fame and lifestyle choices. His parents disapproval of his girlfriend at the time, actress Olivia Munn.
The friction between Rodgers and his family became public in 2016 when his younger brother Jordan appeared on the reality television show The Bachelorette. Jordan revealed that Aaron had distanced himself from the family. Aaron was also livid that the family left two empty seats at the dinner table during one episode of The Bachelorette. The seats were intended for him and his then-girlfriend.
Jordan Rodgers was not in the photos that Aaron posted, but his brother Luke was.
In March, Aaron Rodgers opened up on his rocky relationship with his family on The Pat McAfee Show.
“If you look at the saga with my family, for years it was one-sided,” Rodgers said. “They were making shots in the media saying bullshit. I never said anything until it got to the point where I’m like, ‘All right, enough is enough.’”
Rodgers’ relationship with his parents started to get better in 2023.
In Ian O’Connor’s book “Out of the Darkness: The Mystery of Aaron Rodgers,” the four-time NFL MVP opened up to the author about the situation with his family.
According to O’Connor, Rodgers’ dad, Ed, decided to make the trip to Lake Tahoe in July 2023 to watch his son play in the American Century Championship golf tournament. Aaron had no idea his dad was going to be there, but once he saw him, he decided to break the ice and hugged him. Both exchanged “I love yous.”
“I could do a lot of things,” Rodgers said of the moment, via the New York Post. “But I just thought, ‘What’s best in this moment, and what kind of gift could I give him?’ Because I do love him. I don’t have animosity toward him, even with all the stuff that’s been said and done.”
In his Netflix documentary, Aaron Rodgers: Enigma, which premiered in December of 2024, Rodgers opened up on his public rift with his family — as he participates in an ayahuasca ceremony.
Rodgers explained why he felt “stunted” by his father’s lack of emotion growing up.
“I think part of the real joy in this work, is, there is such a feminine spirit to ayahuasca,” he said, via PEOPLE, suggesting that the psychedelic drug allows users to “model a new way of thinking about masculinity, or what it means to be a man.”
Rodgers said ayahuasca allows him to access “the balance between the divine masculine and the divine feminine.”
Rodgers added, “I think I saw my dad cry when my grandfather passed. And that might have been it.”
“There wasn’t space for emotion. So, I definitely had some stunted...
