Eight years after JoJo Fletcher’s season of The Bachelorette, NFL star Aaron Rodgers is breaking his silence about how his brother Jordan Rodgers portrayed their family fallout on the show — and he’s not pleased.
“It’s not like I was super close with everybody in the family. I was close with my little brother,” Aaron, 41, shared on episode two of Aaron Rodgers: Enigma, which premiered Tuesday, December 17. Reflecting on their strained relationship, Aaron explained, “But honestly, it goes back to stuff from high school that made me feel distant — stuff in college, stuff post-college.”
Both Aaron and Jordan pursued football, with Aaron making it to the NFL as the Green Bay Packers’ first-round pick in 2005. Jordan, who played quarterback at Vanderbilt, had a less successful professional career, being released by three teams before moving on to other ventures.
Aaron said he chose to keep their family issues private: “I thought the best way to handle it was to not talk about it publicly.” That plan unraveled in 2016 when Jordan joined the cast of ABC’s The Bachelorette and made it to the hometown dates. Aaron’s absence during the family dinner — which featured their parents, Ed and Darla, along with older brother Luke Rodgers — was conspicuous.
Aaron Slams The Bachelorette and the Empty Chairs
“And what do they do? They go on a bulls— show and leave two empty chairs,” Aaron said, referring to the dinner scene on The Bachelorette.
Fans of the show might remember how the editors highlighted two empty chairs at the table, seemingly meant to symbolize Aaron and his then-girlfriend Olivia Munn.
“They all agreed this was a good thing to do — to leave two empty chairs on a stupid dating show my brother went on just to get famous. His words, not mine,” Aaron claimed. “And yeah, he won the show. But that dinner was during the season. I was never even asked to come. Not that I would’ve gone.”
Jordan’s Comments on The Bachelorette
During the episode, Jordan addressed Aaron’s absence, telling JoJo Fletcher: “At every step of my life, I was kind of disappointed. No matter what I did, it was never good enough because I was being compared to someone who did it the best. Football didn’t define me, and not having a great relationship with my brother Aaron didn’t define me either.”
Jordan revealed at the time that the two hadn’t spoken in years, attributing the rift to “the way he’s chosen to do life.”
When asked about Jordan’s appearance on the show back in 2016, Aaron kept his response measured: “I haven’t seen the show, to be honest, so it hasn’t really affected me. I’ve always found it a little inappropriate to talk publicly about family matters, so I’m not going to speak on those things.”
This latest revelation, however, paints a clearer picture of the deep-seated tensions between the famous siblings.
