Former Raiders standout opens up about short marriage to Kelsey Plum
A reflective Darren Waller took a blunt look at himself after his short marriage to Aces star Kelsey Plum ended in divorce in April.
Waller, a former Raiders standout tight end, spoke openly about his learning experiences in the past year during an interview with Power 105.1’s “The Breakfast Club” in New York.
The recently retired NFL star referenced the challenge of maintaining a healthy, balanced relationship that achieves individual and partnership goals.
“You talk about get honest or die lying, you kinda got to look at yourself and realize, all right, what role am I playing that all the relationships in my life have always had the same patterns,” Waller said. “It kinda plays into everything else I was mentioning earlier, the codependency aspect like, any time I’m in a relationship, I feel like I gotta dance or do a certain thing to keep this person around, almost tying my self-worth to the success of a relationship, and you realize how much you lose yourself and doing the things that you love and things that take care of you on a daily basis. Making this person kind of like the center of your universe and how unhealthy that is for everybody involved.”
Ultimately, Waller concluded he couldn’t entirely sign off on his life choices to appease a partnership.
“Realizing that and realizing the impact that it was having on me, as far as making decisions that were authentic for the life that I wanted, these are things that I couldn’t say 100 percent yes to,” he said.
Waller and Plum filed for divorce in April. They were married March 4, 2023.
“You have certain conversations and realize there’s so much life ahead of both of us, might as well just go ahead and live it and move on and no type of hostility,” Waller said.
After the filing, Plum shared a message on social media: “I’m devastated. I walked through fire for that man, but now I see it’s time to go.”
Contact Vincent Bonsignore at vbonsignore@reviewjournal.com. Follow @VinnyBonsignore on X.