Given the very public estrangement with his family, Aaron Rodgers certainly hasn’t been eager to share the spotlight with his brother.
While Aaron, 40, was competing in the American Century Championship celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe in 2016 — which coincided with his younger brother Jordan Rodgers, 35, appearing on season 12 of The Bachelorette — a member of the crowd recognized Aaron in a way that did not sit well with the NFL quarterback.
“Someone goes, ‘Hey, are you Jordan Rodgers’ brother?’” Aaron’s friend Craig Rigsbee recalled in an excerpt from the upcoming book Out of the Darkness: The Mystery of Aaron Rodgers, published in the New York Post on Tuesday, August 13. “F–king [Aaron] looked over there and he was legitimately pissed off and shook his head.”
The golf tournament happened shortly after The Bachelorette hometown dates aired, where Jordan briefly discussed the absence of his brother when introducing JoJo Fletcher to his family.
Jordan vs. Aaron Rodgers: Everything We Know About Their Feud
“Me and Aaron don’t really have that much of a relationship,” Jordan said on the episode. “It’s just kind of the way he’s chosen to do life, and I chose to stay close to my family and my parents and my brother and, yeah, it’s not ideal. And I love him.”
Jordan would go on to win The Bachelorette, getting engaged to Fletcher. A Bachelor Nation success story, the couple got married in May 2022 after a six-year engagement and remain together.
In the book, Rigsbee, who was Aaron’s coach at Butte College in 2002, accuses Aaron’s family of attaching their hitches to his wagon even after they dropped communication in 2014.
“They just can’t be hanging on your coattails their whole lives,” Rigsbee says. “People try to take advantage of you and pretty soon they do other s–t, and then you get pissed off, and it’s a tough thing. Then they talk bad about you like, ‘Oh, he’s stuck up,’ or, ‘Oh, he abandoned me.’ No, he’s f–kin’ tired of taking care of your ass.”
In fact, Rigsbee even took things into his own hands once when he confronted Jordan and Aaron’s older brother Luke, 42, about the family drama.
Sibling Rivalry! Football Players Who Have Brothers That Play in the NFL
“The only thing I ever did is, I kind of got on [Aaron’s] brothers’ asses when they were down-talking him one time when they were in town,” Rigsbee tells author Ian O’Connor in the book. “I said, ‘That’s enough of that s–t. Do not say that s–t in public, and don’t talk about it now.’”
Aaron has largely refused to talk about the specific root of the decade-long dissolution of his relationship with his family — which also extends to his parents Ed and Darla — but he did address their need to constantly bring the feud into the public discourse.
“I have questions about why they feel the need to talk about it, because it’s like a game of poker,” Rodgers says in the book. “When you are holding all the cards, you don’t have to bluff. There’s nothing they can say other than make up stories, but look at the facts.”
Out of the Darkness: The Mystery of Aaron Rodgers is available August 20.
