Getty Dwyane Wade and Gabrielle Union met while hosting a Super Bowl party.
Dwyane Wade met his wife Gabrielle Union as the two co-hosted a Super Bowl party in 2007, per Oprah Magazine. Wade was still married to now ex-wife Siohvaughn Funches, but the NBA star would file for divorce just a few months later. Union was also coming off a 2006 divorce to ex-husband Chris Howard.
Union admitted she was initially skeptical of having a serious relationship with Wade, but her opinion changed after they got to know each other. Union discussed how their relationship began in a 2014 interview with Glamour.
“Let’s just see what happens,” Union explained to Glamour. “Turned out he’d been on his own since he was 15. He had wisdom that comes with facing an insane amount of adversity. He’s sweet, funny, honest about his shortcomings. When I put my preconceived notions to the side, I found someone cool.”
Dwyane Wade Proposed to Gabrielle Union With Kids Holding Up “Will You Marry Us” Signs
The couple went on a brief break before Wade proposed in December 2013, and they married less than a year later in August 2014. Union recounted the proposal in which Wade’s kids held up signs with the question, “Will you marry us?”
“Me and D turn around and they’re like, ‘OK, now!’ And they’re holding signs that say, ‘… Will you marry us?'” Union noted, per ABC News. “But the thing is, they ask me all the time, so I was like, ‘Oh, this is embarrassing! Now they’ve made signs!’ I turn to D like, ‘Here we go!’ and he’s down on one knee.”
The Couple Welcomed a Baby Daughter Via a Surrogate After Years of Battling Infertility
Union has been vocal about the couple’s battle with infertility in hopes of encouraging others dealing with similar challenges. Union suffered as many as nine miscarriages and was later diagnosed with adenomyosis that impacted her fertility, per USA Today. The couple welcomed a baby daughter, Kaavia, through a surrogate on November 8, 2018.
“There’s nothing more that I wanted than to cook my own baby,” Union told Women’s Health Magazine. “…“The idea of it felt like surrendering to failure…People want to see the bump, hear that you got hemorrhoids—they want to know you’re like them. I was like, ‘This is going to seem like the most Hollywood s— ever. Will I be embraced as a mom?’ It’s terrifying. But when her baby finally arrived, those feelings were replaced by ones of fierce love, loyalty, and a serious sense of protectiveness. I was like, ‘Oh my god, this is my baby.’ I wanted to fight everybody in that room for various reasons and no reason.”
Despite the couple’s openness about the process, they have still had to endure criticism. Wade defended his wife against some of the negative comments and tried to educate people during a 2018 interview with Oprah.
“We had our baby and everybody started talking about, ‘Why is she in the bed holding the baby? Why she got a gown on? Why is she acting like she just had a baby?’” Wade noted, per Essence. “Once again, people are uneducated on the process and why we decided to go skin-to-skin as soon as our baby came out.”