Red Flags In Derek Jeter's Marriage

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Since longtime New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter met his wife, Hannah Jeter (née Davis), in 2012, it hasn't always been smooth sailing for the couple. The two were introduced by mutual friends in New York City and really hit it off. The craziest part? Hannah had no idea who Derek was. "I thought he was a pitcher. I know it sounds strange that I didn't know he was a shortstop," she wrote in a blog post for The Players' Tribune. "I can just imagine all of the New Yorkers reading this right now thinking, 'Oh, come aawwnn.' They probably don't believe me. You probably don't believe me. But it's true," she added. Despite her lack of Bronx Bombers awareness, Hannah fell in love with Derek and the two ended up getting engaged three years later.

Derek and Hannah tied the knot in July 2016 at the Meadowood Napa Valley resort in St. Helena, California. They kept things fairly intimate with only about 100 guests in attendance. A few months later, the Jeters' first baby was on the way. In the years that have followed the birth of their oldest daughter, the couple has welcomed three more children — two girls and one boy. And, since Derek's retirement from Major League Baseball in 2014, they've lived a fairly private life, spending most of their time in a quiet neighborhood in Coral Gables, Florida. While it could be argued that they have one of the most successful marriages in the sports-supermodel crossover world, there are also some red flags in their marriage, which we just can't ignore.

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Throughout the majority of his Major League career, Derek Jeter was easily the most eligible athlete-bachelor — and he was, for lack of a better word, a playboy. Long before Tom Brady stepped onto the scene, Jeter was a hot commodity and it seemed as though every young, beautiful person in New York City wanted a shot with him. Captain Clutch was ridiculously good-looking and quite rich, but he was also humble — and just about every New York Yankees fan adored him. And he may have used that to his advantage. Jeter had very high-profile relationships with celebs like Mariah Carey and Minka Kelly, the latter of whom many were convinced would become his wife. But he didn't seem to want to settle down. He just wanted to play baseball.

"Don't get me wrong, it's not like I didn't go out and have fun," he told GQ in 2011. "But there's been a lot of players that come to New York and get caught up in the lifestyle, and before you know it, they're sent away to another team because it affected their performance. My number one priority was on the field," he added. It's not that Jeter didn't want to be a husband and a father, it's that he wanted to focus on his career. And so he closed one chapter and started writing the next. But we can't help but wonder if it's that easy or if Jeter's desire to put his career first will creep back in.

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A major red flag in Derek Jeter and Hannah Jeter's marriage is their 16-year age gap. When they met, Hannah was just 22 years old, while Derek turned 38 a month later. Fairly early on, there was a great deal of criticism of their relationship, given that they were in two very different places in their respective lives. And the scrutiny was real. In fact, one of Derek's ex-girlfriends even came forward with a judgmental comment. Vida Guerra told TMZ that Hannah was "like 7" when she dated Derek. Yikes.

Then there were also some people who came forward to defend Derek and Hannah. "Their relationship works because they are both supportive and sweet to each other," a source told Us Weekly in October 2015. "They almost never fight," the source added. No matter what the case was, there was no denying that Derek and Hannah were in love. Flash forward to 2024 and Derek celebrated his 50th birthday in June, while Hannah is holding steady in her mid-30s. We don't want to look too far ahead, but Hannah will be 54 when Derek is 70, but if it works for them...

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Derek Jeter and his wife Hannah Jeter seem to have a good relationship with healthy banter, as evidenced by the short Q&A clip that she posted on Instagram on August 6. However, the Fox Sports analyst made an interesting comment about his marriage in an interview with People magazine back in 2018 — and, yes, it raised a red flag. "My wife deserves a lot of credit. She has been an unbelievable mother, she has a great deal of patience — not only with my daughter, but with me," he told the outlet. 

And it sounds like Derek could take a page out of his wife's book. In an interview with ESPN in 2019, the then-CEO of the Miami Marlins admitted that he doesn't have patience. "I have zero patience. I've been preaching it. I don't have it," he admitted when talking about rebuilding the team and getting them to a World Series. "Patience is something that you have to learn. But I'm fine with not being patient," he added. As a father of four, patience seems like a key ingredient to a happy day-to-day home life, so hopefully Derek's lack of doesn't apply to his home life.

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Derek Jeter and Hannah Jeter have done their best to keep their personal lives out of the public eye. Part of that means that they don't often make public appearances together. Sure, they attend star-studded events, but even those are few and far between. As it turns out, there's a pretty good reason for it. "Both my husband and I have been in a place in our careers where we have to share so much. And we can handle it. But when you love something so much, you want to protect it more than anything in the world. And for me, that's my relationship, that's my kids," Hannah told the Editorialist magazine in 2019, per E! News. However, the Jeters' privacy has often been considered a red flag. 

When Derek and Hannah first got together, she admitted to the New York Post that she liked giving people "a little bit of mystery." Moreover, Hannah said that the "only way to protect [the relationship was] not to talk about it." When it comes to ultra privacy, however, some people tend to think that there's something else going on behind the scenes. Interestingly, the Jeters have dodged the ever-present divorce rumors that haunt just about every other celebrity couple out there. 

But that doesn't mean that they haven't broken their own rules a couple of times. For example, they brought their kids to Derek's Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 2020. Also, Hannah's blog post for The Players' Tribune was a major step outside their bubble.

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Derek Jeter has taken an interesting approach when it comes to the media. Being famous and living in the Big Apple taught him how to deal with the constant attention by ... not dealing with it at all. "I was always scared that I'd see my name and then scroll to see what they're saying," he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2015. "And I didn't want to deal with that when I was playing. I'd tell my family and friends, 'If you read something or hear something, don't tell me about it.' I didn't want to read negativity," he added.

The other golden rule that Jeter has followed is that he doesn't speak out to correct reports about him. While chatting with the titular host of "The Eli Manning show" in 2022, Jeter admitted that he tends to ignore whatever hullabaloo the media says about him. If there's a moment he feels that he'd like to set the record straight, he just bites his tongue. "I always felt as though you want to try to limit the distractions, and if you keep adding to a story, it just becomes a distraction for a long period of time," he told Manning. "I think there's a lot of times people have stories out there you know are untrue, but if you do address it, then it just continues to go," he added. So, if there's an incorrect story out there about the Jeters, don't expect the Captain to address it.