Dwyane Wade Opens Up About Telling Gabrielle Union He Fathered a Child With Another Woman

• Even picture perfect couples like Dwyane Wade and Gabrielle Union (opens in new tab) go through tough times.
• In a revealing interview for his new ESPN documentary, (opens in new tab)  (opens in new tab)D. Wade: Life Unexpected (opens in new tab), the former NBA star opens up about the hardest moment in his and Union's relationship.
• In 2013, when Union and Wade were on a break, he fathered a child with another woman and had to break the news to his now-wife when they reconciled.

Dwyane Wade and Gabrielle Union (opens in new tab) have an amazing relationship, but that doesn't mean they haven't gone through their tough times.

In a candid new interview for his upcoming ESPN documentary, D. Wade: Life Unexpected, the former NBA star shares the story of what he says was the hardest moment in his life: Telling his now-wife that he had fathered a child with another woman.

Wade and Union first started dating (opens in new tab) in 2008, but took a break in 2013. During that time, Wade fathered his now 6-year-old son, Xavier, with another woman. When he and Union, who married in 2014, reconciled, Wade struggled to break the news to her.

In the documentary, Wade describes the experience (opens in new tab):

"I had a child with someone else and I had to tell her. Hardest thing I’ve ever had to do is man up and tell Gabrielle Union that I’ve had a child with somebody else. I couldn’t sleep. I wasn’t eating.

"When you hold something in that you know is going to come out and you have this information and you know it’s gonna f*ck somebody’s life up, that you care about, that you love, if it don’t hurt you, then you’re not human.... Me and Gab just went through something that you never want to go through and we still came out of it."

Wade's children (he's also dad to Zaire (opens in new tab), 18 and Zaya (opens in new tab), 12, and guardian to his nephew, Dahveon, 18) have always played a big role in his life and his relationships. When he proposed to Union in 2013, his kids even helped him pop the question.

"She wasn't just marrying me, she was marrying all this baggage," he says.

Wade and Union now have a one-year-old daughter together, Kaavia, (opens in new tab) who they welcomed via surrogate. Kaavia's birth inspired Wade to retire from professional basketball in 2019.

D. Wade: Life Unexpected premieres Sunday, February 23, at 9 p.m. ET on ESPN.