Aaron Rodgers says he met his now-wife in 2017 and knew he wanted to be with her. The Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback, 42, has laid out that timeline on two podcasts this year. It changes how his relationships with Danica Patrick and Shailene Woodley read in hindsight. It also pulled a public response from another ex, Mallory Edens. Rodgers confirmed in June 2025 that he had married his wife, Brittani, but most of the years between that first meeting and the wedding were spent with other people.
Aaron Rodgers met his wife in 2017
On The Pat McAfee Show on March 4, Aaron Rodgers said they did not date back then, and that she soon “moved back across the pond.” He did not say which month they met.Distance did the rest.Later, on Not Just Football with Cam Heyward, he went further. He said he was “emotionally unavailable” for seven or eight years after meeting her, and that he put everything into football while an ocean separated them. It is a striking thing to say about a stretch that included two very public relationships and one very public engagement.By 2024, Rodgers had reconnected with Brittani, and they eloped in 2025. He said the wedding took place a couple of months before he confirmed it. She stays out of view, which is a sharp contrast to his earlier love life. In July 2025 he told Sports Illustrated she was “the right one,” and he credits her with helping him open up to repairing his relationships with his estranged family.
How Danica Patrick and Shailene Woodley fit the timeline
Patrick came first. She confirmed in January 2018 that she was dating Rodgers, and the two appeared together at the Daytona 500 the next month. They had first met at the ESPYS in 2012. From the outside it looked picture-perfect, with shared photos and romantic getaways.Rodgers now tells it differently. On the Heyward podcast he claimed there was no intimacy at all with Patrick. That is his account only. Patrick’s side is not part of this coverage.Woodley’s story moved faster and quieter. The engagement became public when Rodgers mentioned it in an interview in February 2021, and People then confirmed she was the woman involved. They ended the engagement in 2022. Rodgers has since alleged that Woodley gave him an ultimatum before their planned marriage. Again, only one side is on the record.Then there is Edens. She and Rodgers were linked in early 2023 after being seen courtside at Bucks games. When his comments surfaced, she answered on Instagram while promoting her film Charlie Harper, joking that her ex was on a press tour saying he never loved anyone he dated after 2017.That reply matters because it shows how this story is being built. Rodgers is rewriting a decade of his private life years after the fact, and the people in it are not agreeing to the edit. Patrick and Woodley have not publicly answered. Edens did, and she did it with a joke.