Rio Ferdinand was part of one of the greatest football teams of all time. So, the Manchester United legend’s achievements as a footballer should not be unknown to any football fans. That’s why we will focus on Rio Ferdinand wife and kids in our piece and explore Rio’s life as a family man.
Rio Ferdinand Wife – Rebecca Ellison
Rio Ferdinand exchanged vows for the first time when he married Rebecca Ellison in 2009. The couple had dated for nine years before their wedding. In the BBC one documentary Rio Ferdinand: Being Mum and Dad, the former England international opened up about their relationship.
Rio Ferdinand revealed how he met his ex-wife. As it turns out, Rebecca wasn’t much impressed when Ferdinand approached her for the first time. He asked her to write down her number on a piece of paper, but his straightforward method didn’t work out as he had planned. However, his persistence did pay off at one point, and they ended up being husband and wife.
Ferdinand was playing for West Ham when he met Rebecca. After the two of them started dating, they moved in together in a seven-bedroom mansion in Cheshire. Ferdinand had moved to Leeds United by then, right before his famous (or, infamous! Depends on whether or not you are a Leeds fan) move to Manchester United.
Rebecca comes from Essex and started her professional life as a fitness trainer. She kept pursuing her degree in accounting meanwhile, and once she finished her studies, she became a full-time accountant. Back in 2000, when her path crossed with Ferdinand’s for the first time, she was working as an accountant.
Before becoming Rio Ferdinand’s wife, she got pregnant with Rio Ferdinand’s son Lorenz. A year after the couple welcomed their first child in 2006, they got engaged in Las Vegas. Two years fast forward, Rebecca and Rio tied the knot in a high-end resort in the Virgin Islands. They spent six years as a married couple.
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Rio Ferdinand Cheats On Wife
Even though Rio Ferdinand and Rebecca Ellison had a sweet love story, the ex-Manchester United man wasn’t faithful to his wife. In 2011, it was revealed that he had affairs with at least ten other women while being committed to Rebecca. Carley Storey, Ferdinand’s ex-girlfriend, claimed she had dated the defender before and after his marriage.
Sunday Mirror reporter Gavin Millar accused Ferdinand of pretending to be a model family man for the sake of media attention. He name-dropped ten women, who were romantically involved with Ferdinand while he was in a long-term relationship with the mother of his three children. According to Millar, Ferdinand had paid a Virgin Airways hostess in 2003 for abortion.
Ferdinand sued the tabloid for defamation but lost the court ruled against him. He admitted that some of the cheating allegations were true, but he argued that the reports had breached his privacy and put his personal life in distress. He also went on to claim that he became a changed man after the birth of his children, and solely focused on being the ideal father.
When Did Rio Ferdinand’s Wife Die?
Despite the cheating allegations, Rebecca Ellison remained married to Rio Ferdinand till the last day of her life. On May 1, 2015, she passed away at the age of 34 after a brief battle with breast cancer. In 2014, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. At that point, cancer had already spread to her liver and bone marrow.
The doctors had originally expected her to live five more years after her diagnosis. But, her conditions deteriorated sooner than they had predicted. Both Rebecca and Rio kept this a secret and Rebecca continued to undergo treatment. She breathed her last at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London.
A dark cloud of desolation had grasped the world of football after Ferdinand announced the demise of his loving wife in a heartfelt message. Her funeral was held in Kent with many of Rio Ferdinand’s old teammates in attendance. His Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson was also among the attendees.
Second Wife – Kate Wright
Shortly after Rio Ferdinand’s first wife passed away, he started to see reality TV star, Kate Wright. The couple started dating in 2016, just after Kate had broken up with her boyfriend and former The Only Way Is Essex co-star Dan Edgar. Kate Wright became Rio Ferdinand’s new wife and the stepmother to his three children when they got married in 2019.
Kate Wright was born on June 3, 1991, in Essex. She used to be a bank support worker before entering the realm of reality television. In 2015, she joined the Brentford-based reality show The Only Way Is Essex. During her stint at the show, she had an on-again-off-again relationship with one of the show’s stars Dan Edgar.
Kate Wright met Rio Ferdinand during a vacation in Dubai. They got introduced through mutual friends and clicked right away. In 2017, she resigned from The Only Way In Essex citing her intention to prioritise her relationship with Rio. In 2018, the couple returned to Dubai for vacation and announced their engagement there.
Kate Wright broke the news of her engagement on Instagram. She posted a photo of her alongside Rio and his three children on top of a high-rise building. The caption read ‘’The perfect end to our holiday…How could I not say yes?’’ Rio shared the picture later and revealed that his kids knew he was planning on proposing to Kate.
In September 2019, Rio Ferdinand and Kate Wright got married in a private ceremony in Marmaris, Turkey. The guests were not allowed to use cellphones when they attended the ceremony as the couple didn’t want any of their special day photos to get leaked to the media. Ashanti performed live at the wedding.
Rio Ferdinand Kids
Ferdinand was blessed with three kids in his first marriage. He has always been protective of his children’s identity to the public. Rio Ferdinand wants his kids to grow up without the scrutiny of the public eye. For that reason, he covers the face of his children in family photographs he shares online.
Rio Ferdinand’s eldest son is Lorenz Ferdinad. As we have mentioned earlier, he was born in 2006, three years before Ferdinand had married Rebecca Ellison. He is a Brighton and Hove Albion fan. Ferdinand’s middle son Tete Ferdinand was born in 2008, just a year before his parents’ wedding.
Rio Ferdinand’s daughter’s name is Tia Ferdinand. She is his only daughter and she is five years younger than her eldest brother Lorenz. However, Tia is not the youngest child in the Ferdinand family. On December 18, 2020, Rio and Kate welcomed their first son Cree Ferdinand six months after they had announced his imminent arrival on an Instagram video.
In the said video, Lorenz, Tete, and Tia are seen (their faces are not shown on camera) browsing through their childhood photos. While they go through the pages of the picturebook, they come across a page that reads ‘’Now for the next chapter, guess what?’’ Kate then tells that she is pregnant and the kids burst into excitement hearing it.
Final Say
Going through the history of Rio Ferdinand’s wife and kids, we can conclude that he has been far from a flawless life partner, especially to his first wife. But, he has learned from his mistakes and turned around his family life. He is now a father of four children and a loyal husband to his new wife Kate.
