Two brothers, one feud. Jordan Rodgers and his family are estranged from his brother Aaron Rodgers, but neither have shied away from speaking out about their difficult relationship.
Although the origin of their falling out is unclear, many factors have contributed to Jordan and Aaron’s ongoing tension, which was first made public in 2016 on JoJo Fletcher’s season of The Bachelorette. Jordan, who ultimately won the season, didn’t shy away from telling Fletcher that
Speaking His Truth
Jordan opened up to Fletcher about his family’s drama before taking her home to meet them on The Bachelorette in 2016. “My middle brother won’t be there, Aaron. Like I said, I have a great relationship with my brother Luke. Me and Aaron don’t really have that much of a relationship. It’s just kind of the way he’s chosen to do life and I’ve chosen to stay close with my family and my parents and my brother,” Jordan explained. “Yeah, it’s not ideal and I love him and I can’t imagine what it’s like to be in his shoes and have the pressure he has, the demands from people that he has. Don’t have hard feelings against him, it’s just how things go right now.”
Keep it Quiet
Aaron took issue with Jordan bringing up the nature of their relationship on The Bachelorette. “I haven’t seen the show to be honest with you, so it hasn’t really affected me a whole lot,” the athlete told MISN 12 news in July 2016, noting that he found it “a little inappropriate [for Jordan] to talk publicly about some family matters, so I’m just … I’m not going to speak on those things, but I wish him well in the competition.”
Happily Ever After?
Despite their situation, Jordan seemingly hopes to reconcile with Aaron one day. “There’s no scenario in which I wouldn’t want my entire family at a wedding,” the ESPN analyst told The Hollywood Reporter in August 2016, noting that he “absolutely” will invite Aaron. “That’s what our whole family wants and hopes for and, at some point, it’s going to be a good wedding. There’s going to be a lot of people there.”
Problems With the Patriarch
Jordan and Aaron’s dad, Ed Rodgers, weighed in on the family’s “complicated” relationship with the Green Bay Packers quarterback while speaking to The New York Times in January 2017. “We’re all hoping for the best. It’s hard to tell sometimes [how the rift began],” he told the publication, later hinting that Jordan’s journey on the ABC dating show affected family dynamics: “Fame can change you.”
In the Name of Love
Aaron’s family had concerns over his three-year relationship with Olivia Munn, which ended in April 2017. “Aaron is the one that has pulled away from the family, not the reverse,” a source exclusively told Us three months before the split. “When he got together with Olivia Munn, his family told him they didn’t trust her and thought she wasn’t with him for the right reasons. That made him furious and he ended up choosing Olivia over his family.” A second source told Us that Aaron hadn’t made contact with his family after breaking up with the X-Men star.
Choosing Sides
Fletcher stood up for her fiancé in April 2017, just days before Aaron and Munn called it quits. “I love Jordan, I love his family and I really think those topics now should be discussed within the family. So I’ve really tried to respect that,” she exclusively told Us at the time. “But he has a wonderful family. They love us so much and they’ve been so supportive through everything. So, I mean, I love his family.”
Munn Makes a Move
The Newsroom alum addressed her split from Aaron in May 2018 on SiriusXM’s Radio Andy. “I met the parents only a couple times and before he and I started dating, he hadn’t spoken to the parents and one bother for, like, eight months,” she told Andy Cohen at the time. “At the end of the day, there’s a lot of complications. I don’t think either side of the road is clean. But I do think it’s not OK when you try to stand on someone’s shoulders and then throw dirt in their face, which is what I think they did with him.”
Fighting Back
Jordan addressed Munn’s remarks during an exclusive interview with Us Weekly in May 2018: “I’ll say I have no idea why she’s still talking about tan ex. I don’t get that.”
Opposite of Amicable
Jordan publicly slammed his older brother in November 2018 after Aaron expressed his desire to donate $1 million to the California wildfire relief efforts. “In Northern California, where I was born and raised, the city of Paradise burned to the ground and many of the residents who got out are now displaced to my hometown of Chico across the north state,” Aaron said in a Twitter video. Jordan quipped back: “PLEASE DONATE, SPREAD AWARENESS & SEND LOVE. But when your Mom is home alone during the fires, car packed ready to evacuate, & you miss the fundamental first step of compassion; calling your parents to make sure they are safe…. Everything else just feels like an act.”
Enter Luke
The NFL pro and the sports broadcaster’s oldest brother, Luke Rodgers, weighed in on their Twitter feud in November 2018. He retweeted Jordan’s comments and wrote in a separate tweet, “Smells like cowardice this morning….”