Gabrielle Union reveals she saw the writing on the wall that her marriage to Chris Howard was doomed, even during the proposal.
The 44-year-old actress writes in her new book ‘We’re Going To Need More Wine’ that the former Jacksonville Jaguars player proposed with a ring in one hand while eating KFC in the other.
The wedding was rocky too, with hungover bridesmaids, groomsmen jokingly objecting mid-ceremony and the pastor mispronouncing the A-lister’s name.
She admits these were some of the many ‘red flags’ that occurred during their 2001 nuptials, and claims it was a clue they were headed for a ‘crash and burn’ marriage.
The couple split in 2005 and the financial blow inspired Gabrielle to make sure she had a prenup for her marriage to Dwayne Wade, a Chicago Bulls shooting guard, in 2014.
Gabrielle also opened up about her ‘eight or nine’ heart-breaking miscarriages and her struggle to conceive, despite several rounds of IVF treatment, with the NBA star.
Gabrielle Union reveals that she knew her marriage to former Jacksonville Jaguars player Chris Howard (pictured together in 2001) was destined to ‘crash and burn’ when he proposed while eating a KFC potato wedge. The two were married in 2001 and filed for divorce in 2005
Before Gabrielle and Chris’ wedding day, the actress revealed the football player’s proposal was ‘the first of a list of many ignored red flags’.
She wrote: ‘I spent the whole day at the spa and when I got back to his house, there was a rose petal path from the front door to the bedroom.
‘At the end was Chris, down on one knee. He had a bucket of KFC on the floor, and he was eating KFC potato wedges with one hand while holding a ring in the other.’
Gabrielle also dished it was less than 24 hours after the somewhat romantic proposal when she discovered a message on Chris’ computer that hinted at an affair.
Still, she took her fiancé back and the two were married during Jazz Fest in New Orleans, meaning that most of her bridesmaids were hungover when they showed up to the ceremony.
But the situation was worse on the groom’s side, with one of his groomsmen showing up to the wedding fresh out of jail.
As the bridesmaids and groomsmen walked down the aisle, fear set in for Gabrielle.
She wrote in her candid memoir: ‘But once they all walked, it was just me, myself and my anxiety, standing at the beginning of an aisle that now seemed a country mile long.’
Her father saw she was tearing up, but not out of joy. He felt the need to give her a pep talk like she was a high school football player to get her down the aisle.
The actress compared her wedding and marriage to Howard (left and right) to a car crash in her new tell-all book, ‘We’re Going To Need More Wine’. The 44-year-old said they both cheated on the other numerous times
The Being Mary Jane star revealed that she had ‘eight or nine’ miscarriages while she was trying to get pregnant with now-husband NBA star Dwayne Wade
Gabrielle asked friend and West Wing actor Dulé Hill to do a reading at her wedding, but he could tell she was making a huge mistake.
She wrote: ‘Dulé thought this marriage was a terrible mistake, so as he read from 1 Corinthians, he kept sighing dramatically, pausing to look at me like “Are you getting this?”‘
When the minister asked if anyone objected to their union, Gabrielle was certain she was being left at the altar as Chris stepped down towards his groomsmen.
She remembers the moment in slow motion and feared he realized she cheated on him and was backing out of the marriage in the most embarrassing and dramatic way possible.
Gabrielle writes about race, politics and relationships in her new memoir, which is out October 17
She recalls: ‘Chris leaned in with his groomsmen, taking a huddle. They stamped their feet in unison, all turning back to me with a football chant of “We do!'”
The bride was relieved it was a joke, but looking back it feels darkly ironic.
However, that wasn’t the end of the cringeworthy moments at the Howard-Union wedding. The minister mispronounced Gabrielle’s name calling her Gabriel, like the Biblical angel.
Because Gabrielle felt awkward correcting the minister, when reading her vows she mispronounced her name as well.
The marriage fit the disastrous ceremony, with Gabrielle suspecting her husband was continually cheating on her.
One day she found a phone number for a woman named Angelina in a pile of laundry. The actress knew he was sleeping around but was enraged when she found this ‘proof.’
She screamed at Chris saying: ‘You think you’re gonna call this b****? YOU THINK YOU’RE GONNA CALL THIS B****?’
It turned out, the number was from a soul food restaurant Gabrielle had asked him to find the name of.
Another cheating scandal would lead to the end of Chris and Gabrielle’s marriage. One of the women he allegedly slept with, ‘Cameron Camera’, threatened to sell photos proving he was a philanderer to tabloids.
The actress credited Prince for meeting Wade. She met his brother in an elevator heading to Prince’s Golden Globes after party in 2007. The two were just friends before the relationship deepened, she wrote
But after Chris and Gabrielle split, she met her future husband Dwayne Wade. And she gives credit to Prince in her book.
In 2007, she was in an elevator going to Prince’s Golden Globes after party when she met Wade’s brother, Donny, in the elevator. He asked about them hosting a Super Bowl party together and the rest is history.
She wrote: ‘I didn’t take D seriously until much later. He became a friend, and then he became my best friend.
‘We were talking about something completely unrelated to us, and I looked at him and I just knew: I didn’t want to be on this planet without him. I didn’t want to not bear witness to him succeeding. I chose him.’
Choosing was the easy part it seems, as Gabrielle noted she was tensely negotiating her prenup agreement for months before the two parties finally agreed on terms.
She wrote: ‘My team and I were adamant that we have a prenup to protect myself, because I got taken to the cleaners in my first marriage.’
Gabrielle is forthcoming about her struggles to conceive with Wade, opening up about her ‘eight or nine’ heart-breaking miscarriages and several IVF treatments.
Gabrielle noted that she had tense negotiations about her prenup agreement for months before she and Wade finally agreed on terms and tied the knot in 2014
She writes: ‘I never wanted children before Dwayne. Dwayne wanted children with me a long time before I was fully on board.
‘For three years, my body has been a prisoner of trying to get pregnant – either about to go into an IVF cycle, in the middle of an IVF cycle, or coming out of an IVF cycle.
‘This child we want to have has been loved even as an idea. So we remain here, bursting with love and ready to do anything to meet the child we’ve both dreamed of.’
The wide-ranging memoir reveals the struggles the actress had dealing with race in her childhood and admits she began masturbating when she was about five years old.
And the step-mother is honest about racial issues, revealing the advice she departed to the three boys she is helping to raise with Wade, cautioning them about women.
She told the two teens: ‘”Don’t ever put yourself alone in a room with a white girl,” I told them. “Or, in Miami, a Cuban girl.”‘
Gabrielle discusses the night she was raped at gunpoint while working at a Payless shoe store in 1992.
She also spills about her relationship with NBA star Jason Kidd when the two were still in high school and how she was dumped in front of an entire basketball arena two weeks before prom.