Besides announcing his sobriety from alcohol for several months, retired NBA legend Allen Iverson also recently revealed he had scored another win by rekindling his romance with his ex-wife, Tawanna Turner, after they divorced in 2013.
Iverson, 50, and Turner were high school sweethearts, and they tied the knot in 2001. Iverson, in an October 8 interview with Stephen A. Smith on First Take, touched on how his life altered after he and Turner initially split over a decade ago.
“It was self-inflicted, but Tawanna divorcing me, that’s when I knew I had hit my lowest point and it was time for some deep self-reevaluation,” the Philadelphia 76ers legend said, per E! News.
“I mean, my number one. Obviously, we been together 35 years. If you hang in there that long, it takes a lot to wanna go. And I came to find out afterwards once we got back together.”
Iverson and Turner share five children: Tiaura, 30, Allen II, 27, Isaiah, 22, Messiah, 20, and Dream, 17. Turner first filed for divorce from Iverson in 2010, but she later called it off. She, however, filed for her second divorce a year later, and they finalized their separation in 2013.
Iverson told Smith that their divorce proceeding was an emotional one for him. “I had tried everything, nothing was working,” he recalled.
“And when I’m sitting in that courtroom, and I usually watch Sixers. vs. Sixers in the scrimmage or Georgetown vs. Georgetown, and I’m sitting there and them tears hit the page and I saw Iverson vs. Iverson. I was like oh man, this is the lowest it gets right here.”
The 50-year-old, however, said that Turner’s support influenced his desire to become a better person. “I had to change a lot of things,” Iverson revealed.
“What is so crazy about me not drinking anymore, she told me this was the first time that she had ever prayed on it—when I told her I was stopping—because I had before. That was the first time she said she prayed on it, and I was authentic.”
And though Turner ultimately took him back, Iverson admitted that he had to do a lot of begging and convincing.
“A lot of Keith Sweat,” he said. “I had to do a lot of begging, and I had to convince her that basically this wasn’t the same old me. I expressed to her what she meant to me, what she means to me in my life and how pivotal that she is in my growth and my maturation and where I want to go in life.”
Iverson added: “I don’t feel like I’m the same Allen Iverson without her. She is my life.”
