As decades-long tension among Aaron Rodgers’ immediate family continues to simmer, his biographer explained where things currently stand with the quarterback and his parents.
In an exclusive interview with Us Weekly, author Ian O’Connor, who profiled Rodgers, 41, in 2024’s Out of the Darkness: The Mystery of Aaron Rodgers, revealed Rodgers was in touch with his father Ed and mother Darla as recently as last year.
“In the early fall of 2024, there were a couple of hopeful emails exchanged between Aaron and his parents,” O’Connor said. “But by the end of the 2024 football season, the tone of their communication had changed and that cautious optimism about a potential reconciliation faded.”
The emails came on the heels of Ed and Aaron crossing paths at the American Century Championship celebrity golf tournament in 2023, their first interaction in nearly nine years.
“Aaron saw his father Ed in the crowd at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe and walked over to hug him and tell his dad that he loves him,” O’Connor said of the interaction.
O’Connor said there are “a hundred reasons” for the Rodgers family breakdown, which also trickles down to Aaron’s brothers, Luke and Jordan.
“The estrangement between Rodgers and his family has lasted more than a decade,” O’Connor said. “Religion was a big part of it early on – Aaron’s parents built their lives around the Neighborhood Church in their hometown of Chico, California, which was part of the evangelical Christian and Missionary Alliance, and Aaron never connected with it. He didn’t want to be there.”
Darla Pittman-Rodgers and Edward Rodgers. Courtesy of Luke Rodgers/Instagram
After high school, Aaron attended college at the University of California-Berkeley, where O’Connor said he “got exposed to so many different people from different backgrounds.”
“Aaron questioned and challenged everything, because that’s how he was wired,” O’Connor explained. “He even questioned the role of his family in his life and came to believe that some family members were laying claim to his fortune and fame. And as Aaron’s longtime friend Jordan Russell told me, ‘If Aaron feels his family or other people in his life have laid claim to something based on his efforts, Aaron will then go out of his way to make sure they earn their own way.’”
O’Connor referred to “The Island,” where Aaron will castaway family members and friends who he believes have earned his distrust.
“You don’t want to be sent to The Island,” O’Conor said, adding that, “If you become a perceived obstacle in his path, you will be removed from his life.”
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Aaron’s current estrangement from his family was evidenced during an appearance on ESPN’s The Pat McAfee Show last month, where he discussed his recent marriage to his wife, Brittani.
In discussing his wedding to Brittani “a couple of months ago,” Aaron mentioned his family, saying, “I don’t talk to” them.
“They wouldn’t know any information about me,” Aaron added.
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