Whispers surrounding Aaron Rodgers’ family feud are getting louder and louder as the Packers move closer and closer to the Super Bowl.
Days after the New York Times investigated Rodgers’ strained relationship with his family, a source close to the quarterback revealed he has no plans to comment on the rift.
“Aaron has never wanted to air this out in a public forum. He’s going through great precautions not to make things worse,” the insider told People. “You’re not going to see him on Oprah crying about all of this. He will deal with his family issues privately.”
Rodgers’ family drama went fully public last summer following Jordan Rodgers’ appearance on “The Bachelorette.” As Jordan moved further along in the competition, he came clean to now-fiancée JoJo Fletcher about the fractured relationship with his older brother.
“I have a great relationship with my brother Luke. Me and Aaron really don’t have much of a relationship,” Jordan explained. “It’s just kind of the way he’s chosen to do life, and I chose to stay close with my family, my parents and my brother.
“It’s not ideal, and I love him. I can’t imagine what it’s like to be in his shoes and have the pressure he has and the demands from people he has. Don’t have hard feelings against him. It’s just how things go right now.”
You can only expect the pressure to intensify as the Packers keep winning. Rodgers led Green Bay to a 34-31 victory over the Cowboys on Sunday, and they will play the Falcons in the NFC Championship Game this weekend. With another victory would come the relentless hype of the two-week run-up to the Super Bowl — especially the big-tent-circus, anything-goes environment of Media Day.
Rodgers previously expressed his commitment to remaining tight-lipped about his dirty laundry, even as the “Bachelorette” gossip hit the press.
“As far as those kinds of things go, I’ve always found that it’s a little inappropriate to talk publicly about some family matters, so I’m just — I’m not going to speak on those things,” he told reporters in July.
Rodgers’ father, Ed, previously hinted that the allure of Hollywood had gotten to his middle child, and rumors have circulated that longtime girlfriend Olivia Munn contributed to the family split. Sources told Us Weekly the actress has “a strong personality and every meeting she has had with them has gone badly.”
When Jordan brought JoJo home to Chico, Calif., for last year’s reality-show episode, two empty chairs — for Rodgers and Munn — were conspicuously left at the kitchen table. According to Bleacher Report, Rodgers hasn’t spoken to his parents since 2014 and returned Christmas presents sent to him and Munn. Ed Rodgers confirmed the accuracy of the Bleacher Report story to the Times.