Gabrielle Union has revealed that Dwyane Wade’s 2023 cancer diagnosis led to a “very hard” year in their marriage, explaining that confronting mortality in one’s early forties puts a significant strain on relationships.
“It was year nine of our marriage and … year nine was very hard,” Union, who married the Hall of Fame basketball star in 2014, said during an appearance on Today with Jenna & Friends on Wednesday. Union talked more about her husband’s kidney cancer struggle, which he first disclosed in January of this year.
“When you mention year nine being hard, he hadn’t revealed his cancer diagnosis and his own cancer journey, so now we can put it in more context,” Union, 52, said.
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Wade, now 43, had 40% of his kidney removed after doctors found a cancerous tumor, and as Union said, “obviously him getting that diagnosis was traumatic for him: Being faced with your own mortality in your early forties, and you’re like, ‘Am I going to be here to see my family? Who am I without this big life, and without this healthy body?’ “
She continued: “But you also don’t understand the journey and the toll that it takes on your marriage, on your family, on your kids.”
Wade and Union share a daughter, Kaavia James, 6, while Wade also has three children from previous relationships—Zaire, 22, Zaya, 17, and Xavier, 11. He is also the legal guardian of his nephew, Dahveon Morris, 21.
Union said Wade was “a little more hesitant to take us on that journey of healing.”
As Wade previously said on his The WY Network podcast, “As a man, you never want your family to see you weak … Don’t want to be perceived weak, don’t want to be seen in your weakest moments but I had to [be].”
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Union elaborated on that point, saying, “That level of vulnerability, to go through removal of a good chunk of his kidney and the healing that involved, he needed us to be okay with his vulnerability but more than that, he needed to be okay with his vulnerability.”
“It was a challenge,” she said.
