Heavy Hallmark stars' relationship news
Though they appear to be the picture of happiness today, Hallmark star Holly Robinson Peete has revealed that she and former NFL quarterback Rodney Peete nearly divorced five years into their marriage.
“I was ready to leave,” she said on Kelly Ripa’s “Let’s Talk Off Camera” podcast on January 30, 2024, revealing that the rift was caused by Peete’s “denial” after their son, RJ, was diagnosed with autism at age three.
Robinson Peete, who rose to fame on TV shows like “21 Jump Street” and “Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper,” told Ripa her husband had hoped his firstborn son would follow in his footsteps as an elite athlete, so he didn’t want to believe or deal with the autism diagnosis.
“Rodney was on Denial Street,” she said, as she shared in-depth how hard it was for them to get on the same page about how to help their son thrive.
Here’s what you need to know:
Holly Robinson Peete Says She Told Her Husband ‘I’m Out of Here’
RJ, now 25, has a neurotypical twin sister, Ryan, and two younger brothers, Robinson Peete, 21, and Roman, 18, per People. When RJ was little, it was clear to his famous mom that he was not developing the same as his twin.
“I started noticing that RJ, my son, was not playing alongside his sister right,” she shared with PopSugar in July. “I’m like, ‘Well maybe he just doesn’t want to be with her.’ But he was not doing parallel play; he was playing alone. He was looking at things, and turning lights on and off, and lining up his Thomas the Tank Engine trains and staring at the wheels. There were lots of signs, but I was just a rookie mom, so I didn’t know.”
Though the kids’ pediatrician initially brushed off Robinson Peete’s suspicions something was off, RJ was eventually diagnosed with autism when he was three. She and her husband, who was often away from home, playing with the Philadelphia Eagles at the time, were given “a laundry list of things he would never do,” she told Ripa.
“He will never mainstream in school,” she recalled the experts telling them about their son. “He’ll never say, ‘I love you.’ He’ll never have meaningful employment. He’ll never drive.”
Those predictions scared Peete into denial, she said.
“RJ’s supposed to be the Heisman Trophy winner,” she told Ripa, “and instead, (Rodney) got the kid who comes to the locker room and runs around and twirls and flaps and stims.”
According to Autism Parenting Magazine, stimming is a repetitive, self stimulatory behavior such as hand flapping, spinning, or shaking. It is believed to occur when people, particularly those on the autism spectrum, have difficulty regulating emotions like excitement or nervousness.
“(Rodney) could not process this,” Robinson Peete told Ripa, adding that he wouldn’t even look at books or resources she highlighted for him. “We were not on the same page. We weren’t even in the same state or country.”
“I was all alone,” she continued, “and I finally said to him, ‘I cannot eggshell my life around you because you’re sad about the kid you got.’ This was a big issue. I was ready to leave him. Did I want to do this on my own? No, but he was no help, and then he was in denial, and even people in his family couldn’t even say the word autism.”
“My gangsta mom jacket is on,” Robinson Peete added, “and I cannot (deal) with you. So I told him, ‘I’m out of here.'”
Holly Robinson Peete Says Her Husband Changed His Mind After Witnessing Son’s Autism Therapy Session
Getty(L-R) Rodney Peete, Holly Robinson Peete, RJ Peete, Roman Peete, and Ryan Elizabeth Peete attend the HollyRod DesignCare Gala in July 2023
Robinson Peete, who has starred in well over a dozen Hallmark movies, told Ripa that what shifted her husband’s perspective was when he attended one of RJ’s “floor time” therapy sessions. Seeing the therapist connect with his son better than he could was jarring for the athlete.
“It was through sheer embarrassment that he turned it around,” she said. “He was like, ‘There’s no way in the world some stranger’s going to connect with my kid but I won’t.’ And that really was what turned him around and he’s been on board ever since.”
Peete not only became a more engaged father, but also an advocate for other families facing an autism diagnosis. In July 2023, the couple’s HollyRod Foundation celebrated its 25th anniversary at its annual the DesignCare gala, which raises money for autism research, per Essence.
“When I moved past my denial of R.J.’s condition, I was surprised by how I felt,” Peete wrote in his 2010 book, “Not My Boy!”
“I felt liberated,” he wrote. “Sure, at first I’d mourned the vision I’d had of the kind of father I would be to R.J. And I understood that I had to let go of all the images of fatherhood that I’d received from movies and television – from Ward Cleaver to Cliff Huxtable. I wanted to have as loving a relationship with R.J. as I’d enjoyed with my own dad, but I had to come to terms with the fact that it couldn’t be exactly the same.”
Hallmark Channel fans got to know the Peete family when they starred in the network’s reality show “Meet the Peetes” for two seasons in 2018 and 2019.
Today, RJ is thriving in his “dream job,” working as a clubhouse attendant for the Los Angeles Dodgers since 2016, he said during a profile of him on “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” in November.
“My favorite thing is about interacting with all the players and hanging out with them,” he said. “They treat me like family, they treat me like a normal person.”