Dwyane Wade had a crush on his wife Gabrielle Union from an early age.

Long before their love story began, the former NBA star was already in love with the actress as a boy growing up in Chicago after she rose to fame. While many NBA marriages are likely to follow certain conventional patterns, their union stands out not only because Union has already been successful, but additionally due to the non-traditional dynamic of their partnership.

In a candid interview on Angel Reese’s podcast “Unapologetically Angel,” Wade said: “My wife has been a star for a really very long time. I grew up as a horny little boy… I definitely had a crush on her after I was young.

He added: “For example, I’m from the Black community. This is Gabrielle Union.

For comparison: When Union played the role of Isis in the 2000 hit film “Bring It On,” Wade was an 18-year-old freshman at Marquette University.

Even before that, when she appeared on shows like “Moesha” and “Sister, Sister,” Wade was around 14 or 15 years old and watched her from afar. Little did he know that a few years later, Union would change into his wife.

While some may assume that Union’s established profession might pose challenges in their relationship, Wade sees it in a different way. He admitted that special effort needed to be put into it, but noted that the dynamics they’d built together worked to their advantage.

“It was an adjustment. It wasn’t easy and it is not easy for either side,” he said.

Union, as Wade described her on the podcast, is an “alpha” female. As a result, he often takes the lead. But Wade isn’t any stranger to this balance.

“You could see my personality, I can play with Shaq and LeBron. Me and Gab play together. We are partners. We’re teammates, so for me it’s just one other version of what happened,” he said.

Wade said learning when to step up and when to step back is crucial to their success.

“I have to learn when to lead and I have to learn when to follow… and a lot of men hear this and say, ‘What do you mean, follow your woman?’”

This approach led to one in all the most notorious elements of their marriage: a 50/50 financial split. This discovery sparked debates about gender roles and perceptions of masculinity in relationships. But Wade takes it calmly, confident in their arrangement and his identity.

“You know, you have to be really confident when you’re dealing with a woman who makes her own bread,” Reese said. “For example, he can hop on a (private jet) at any time when he wants. Like, she got their life, so you will have to be protected in what you do and how you progress.

A starring role in the estimated $40 million series “Being Mary Jane” gives their partnership financial strength. Wade said she often insists on dividing all the things equally.

“Sometimes he dominates me. He’ll swell up just a little and say, “I’ll pay… I’ll pay half.”

However, this isn’t at all times the case. There are also times when Union says, “You got it, big dog,” leaving him for all the things.

Union faced public criticism for her comments about halving household expenses. In 2023, she explained why she linked up with Wade, citing her desire to contribute relatively than rely solely on him.

In an interview with Bloomberg Originals’ Idea Generation, Union said: “It’s weird to say I’m the head of the family because in this household we split everything 50/50.”

Their 50/50 financial arrangement is not the only way their marriage defies tradition.

In the last ten years since they said “I do,” Wade and Union have built a blended family that seems to suit them.

The way I approach fatherhood…#HappyFathersDay pic.twitter.com/NDjcd0qOBZ

— DWade (@DwyaneWade) June 17, 2024

Wade brought three children into the marriage – Zaire and Zaya (née Zion) from his previous relationship with Siohvaughn Funches, and Xavier, who was born during a brief separation from Union.

Another non-traditional aspect of their family life was the decision to make use of a surrogate to welcome their daughter, Kaavia James, also often called “Shady Baby,” in 2018.

The conversation with Reese reveals that Wade’s childhood dream has change into a reality – he spends his life with the woman he admired from afar as a young boy.

BOULDER, Colo. (AP) – Even on Monday – two days after a thrilling victory in Colorado, back home – at The Buff, a breakfast and brunch spot, everyone knew your name and 99-cent mimosas helped wash down the alcohol, bacon-stuffed pancakes and huevos rancheros.

Deion Sanders’ arrival boosted the prestige of this restaurant in much the identical way it has now boosted all the pieces around CU. Before the celebrity bus arrived in Boulder, places like The Buff were established institutions. These are destinations.

“When we have a home game, well, I run a company and I have to make sure we double order everything and fill the room to capacity,” manager Dru Libby said of the noticeable difference between now and a few years ago in a bet he never wanted for patrons.

This story unfolds up and down Canyon Boulevard or anywhere in Boulder, where the brownstones and red-roofed buildings on campus provide the backdrop for a whole city basking in the second yr of the so-called “Primal Effect.”

The numbers that the arrival of “Coach Prime” has bestowed upon Boulder are so powerful – from school enrollment to town’s economic clout to the variety of celebrities on the sidelines – that it might sometimes be tempting to overlook the number that represents essentially the most in sports: Wins .

How many does CU need to contemplate this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity a success? What can be the timeframe? There are not any clear answers to any of the questions, but a consensus is constructing that CU, which was 4-8 in Sanders’ first season, needs to start out accumulating Ws in the end.

The comeback win over Baylor, followed by a 48-21 victory for UCF last weekend, gave CU a 4-1 record on the season at week’s end, and fans were feeling optimistic.

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“There’s a lot of hype around this team and this program,” said Tyler Odorisio, a longtime Buffs fan who was at the college’s bookstore a few hours before the homecoming game. “We finally saw a little ray of hope here. Now we just need to construct on it and see some wins.

Prime introduced to CU

In a spacious, sunny second-floor office next to the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder, Jeremy Bloom sits at his desk. The wall behind him is decorated with three of his CU team jerseys and bibs from two trips to the Olympics, all framed and under glass.

Before Sanders arrived in Boulder, Bloom was essentially the most consistent buffalo of the twenty first century.

He is a football player and freestyle skier who began fighting and suing college players in the early 2000s. This was long before paying players became the claim to fame – after which reality – of the generation of NCAA athletes that followed.

The model Bloom once dreamed of, Sanders turned players – including sons Shedeur and Shilo and quarterback Travis Hunter – into millionaires and transformed CU into a place to see and be seen for the primary time, and definitely rather more. than during his only national championship season in 1990.

Now 42, Bloom has a long history in Boulder. As a CU fan, he suffered mostly in silence for years because the Buffs fell to the underside of the Pac-12.

“We didn’t matter at all,” he said. “In many conversations, we were the laughing stock of the entire country. As the conference changes approached, you could see that we were excluded from any major conference, and rightly so.”

Then got here Sanders. Since then, CU has found a comfortable landing spot in the conference it left, the Big 12.

A businessman at heart, Bloom checked out the facts and figures compiled by the Boulder Convention and Visitors Bureau: The six home games last yr, when Sanders became a everlasting resident, had an economic impact of $113.2 million; direct guest spending increased by $10 million; the typical visitor spent $183 on accommodation last yr in comparison with $102 six years ago.

Other facts and figures: The University of California’s enrollment is at a record high of 38,428 students. Applications from Black candidates increased by greater than 50% in 2023-24. This fall, a record 1,046 students (including 45 football players) transferred to the University of California, thanks in part to a provision Sanders helped spearhead.

Bloom, who played a role in luring the bus to Boulder, loves all of it as much as anyone. Faced with a key question about Sanders’ stay in Boulder, the question is clear.

“He has to win without a doubt,” Bloom said. “It’s a performance business. This is not a personality-based business. Yes, he’s a very fascinating figure, but people won’t fill stadiums just to observe him walk on the touchline.

“Main Effect”

Sanders likes to start out his weekly press conferences with facts and figures from the previous weekend. They almost all the time must do with the variety of NFL scouts who showed up at CU’s last game and the variety of TV viewership that has increased since his arrival.

“Whether people like it or not, they’re watching it,” Sanders once said after the Buffs drew a TV audience for a game against North Dakota State that might have been unthinkable three or 4 years ago.

Part of Sanders’ skill comes from one among the oldest moves in the coaching playbook: By making himself a lightning rod, he takes among the pressure off players who, he admits, have even greater responsibilities to meet now that a few of them are millionaires, but who’re also still teenagers.

So for a week, the coach was the title that attracted attention criticizing the columnist he felt like he was hitting below the belt. The following week he handled the erroneous report he had received ordered the CU marching band to not play a fight song when his quarterback son, Shedeur, scored a touchdown. “It’s idiotic. You all know that,” Sanders said.

Coach has his own series on Netflix. His sunglass sales are legendary, though that is not the one accolade he’s earned since moving from Jackson State to the big-time college football team. To come to CU, he urged the college to streamline its restrictive policies transfer rules this had an impact on the status of the football program, which was also implemented.

Sometimes, amidst all of the hype and glitz surrounding the new edition of Buff football, one other well-worn page from the school textbook on which Sanders is putting his own stamp is lost.

“We don’t just want to coach them, we want to shape them and mature them and love them,” said Sanders, who is not the primary college coach to tackle the role. “We love these young men in so many ways. Some of these young men have never heard this word from a man. So it’s important that they not only hear it, but we show it.”

In an effort to mold players into good residents, Sanders has been playing the sport too long to lose sight of the outcomes.

He recruited greater than two dozen four- or five-star players to Colorado through the portal and traditional highschool recruiting. This yr’s lineup includes not one, but possibly two top-five NFL draft picks, including Shedeur Sanders and Hunter, whose Heisman Trophy resume grows with each passing week. The coach bristled last month when asked if he was still trying to search out his identity at CU.

“I’m not looking for an identity, I want to win,” Sanders said. “We’re attempting to take the blokes to the subsequent level, we’re trying to coach young men and switch them into men, not boys. There’s a lot happening here, not only on the pitch. It’s deep on the pitch. This is an echo of all the pieces. First of all, we’re attempting to win.”

Does CU need Deion greater than Deion needs CU?

Fans like Odorisio expect a bowl game this season – Colorado has only reached this point twice since 2008.

UCF’s victory in a game in which CU was a nearly two-touchdown underdog gave the Buffs a 2-0 conference record, but in addition status as a contender for the conference title and a trip to the College Football Playoff, unlikely because it could seem.

How much patience do fans have for a coach who, in almost every way, has single-handedly made CU a more attractive school to attend, visit and watch football in?

Well, it’s complicated.

Hunter, together with each of Sanders’ sons, will retire from college football after this yr. This brings with it a real fear that the coach may simply drive out of town after they accomplish that. If Sanders leaves for a latest coaching job in 2025, his latest employer will only owe Colorado $8 million.

CU fans see signs in all the pieces, despite the fact that they don’t seem to be entirely sure what they mean. For example, Sanders’ 2025 recruiting class is off to a slow start, although the transfer portal has not yet opened. Everyone here has noticed the bad start at Sanders’ alma mater, Florida State, and is wondering if there will be a gap in the long run. Seminoles coach Mike Norvell will owe $63 million if the college parts ways with him after this season.

Sanders has repeatedly said he got here to Boulder to construct something. Asked what he tells parents of recruits who wonder if he’ll be here in a yr or two, he replied: “I tell them the truth.”

“I tell them I’m the father, not the baby daddy,” Sanders said. “I don’t follow my children. I pave roads for my children. I am building generational wealth for my children. I lead my children. I don’t follow my children. So I have no intention of going to the NFL with my kids. But I’m grateful.”

With each victory, CU supporters turn out to be much more grateful that Sanders has arrived to tug this system out of the doldrums. Many agree that he has built a great brand. Now they hope he stays with the team long enough to construct a great football program.

“We’d like to keep it,” says Libby, the restaurant manager. “And if not, we will still put the identical heart and love into what we do here. We are a tourist town. We will still have latest people. But the impact: Yes, he had a wonderful, positive impact. I hope he stays when Shedeur is gone.

Comedian and cultural commentator Amanda Seales recently appeared online days after Issa Rae’s critical remarks about their earlier exchange. However, her cryptic reply post has left fans and followers speculating about her recent absence from social media.

Seales’ latest post, which some interpreted as political commentary, satire or a clever nod to her “Smart Funny & Black” brand, sparked a storm of interpretations.

On September 28, she shared a screenshot showing the phone contact of somebody named “Harriet Tubman” against a lightweight yellow background. The post shows an emoji of a girl grimacing as if smiling in displeasure, wearing pigtails and two braided buns on either side of her head. The photo was accompanied by a mysterious caption: a red emergency phone emoji.

For example, what does it mean to receive a call from none aside from Harriet Tubman?

However, many individuals focused on the humorous nature of her post, with one follower in her comments section asking, “lol is that Issa?” Another replied: “I thought so too.”

In April 2024, Seales gained huge popularity due to an interview with Shannon Sharpe’s “Club Shay Shay”, during which she shared comments about her former boss and difficult moments while filming Rae’s HBO comedy “Insecure”, during which they each starred.

Seales, who played Tiffany DuBois on the series, said she felt “humiliated” after being kicked out of the 2019 Black Emmy party, which she attended with fellow “Insecure” actor Kendrick Sampson and a friend of hers. However, Rae’s publicist, Vanessa Anderson, who “had a problem with her,” informed Seales that she wouldn’t be allowed in, Seales said.

“She tells us, ‘You can are available, you may are available’… and she or he says, ‘No, you may’t are available.’ I asked, “Why can’t I come in?” He says, ‘You’re on the no-go list,'” Seales explained to Sharpe at the time.

She said a big security guard approached her and asked her to depart. According to the humorist, Rae must have stepped in, but as an alternative she was told: “It’s between you two. It’s none of my business.

Rae apparently addressed their tumultuous relationship recently at the September 24 Brooklyn launch of her Viarae sparkling wine, where she made a subtle but blunt remark.

In the video posted by The Breakfast Club, Rae could be heard answering an issue about people she’s going to “never work with again.”

Without naming names, she said, “I mean anyone who comes on the podcast and talks shit about me,” before quickly softening her stance and adding, “But I’ve had great experiences with everyone I’ve worked with, so for probably the most part I’m at all times grateful when people come back.”

Back to the Emmy Awards party, Rae insisted that she was in New York at the time and came upon about it the following morning. She also stated that she never forced Seales to confer with her publicist.

“I wanted two adults to, you know, talk and repair the relationship – two adults who didn’t like each other and it didn’t work out and we went back to work,” Rae said.

Although Rae didn’t mention Seales by name, many fans speculated that she was the intended subject of Rae’s comments. The fallout from this incident apparently contributed to rising tensions between the 2.

Seales faced criticism for her interview online, especially because it was the primary time she mentioned Rae by name. She responded with a series of deleted videos before returning to her normal content on politics and government ahead of the election, which was also met with backlash.

This response was also tied to her controversial comments about presidential candidate Kamala Harris, who stated that America is just not an inherently racist nation, which the “Small Doses” podcast host later clarified and claimed didn’t go as she initially claimed.

Previously, Seales began experiencing bouts of depression or sadness as a consequence of her alleged rejection by Black Spaces in Hollywood and never being invited back to certain award shows, corresponding to the BET Awards, NAACP Awards or Essence Black Women in Hollywood Awards.

Regardless of her reasons for sharing her comments less often on social media over the past few weeks, many appear to miss her online banter.

The meme is the primary post Seales has shared since her September 6 post, during which fans were quick to specific their disappointment at the dearth of comment within the comments.

“I thought they shadowbanned you or something Lawd,” one person wrote, while one other said, “I was wondering if the algorithm was removing you from my channel. It turns out you haven’t written for a long time. Welcome back!”

A 3rd said: “I’m glad you’re protecting your room!”

Some have noticed that Seales hasn’t completely disappeared from the general public eye – she is lively on her Patreon account, where she frequently shares content and publishes a newsletter. She has also promoted her IG page a dozen times since July 31, but her return to Instagram after 22 days of silence was nonetheless celebrated by her core audience.