Danica Patrick claims that the end of her relationship with NFL star Aaron Rodgers “wore [her] down to nothing.”
“It was sudden [and] it felt like it was my life,” Patrick, 43, said on the Wednesday, May 21, episode of “The Sage Steele Show” podcast, going on to describe her break up with the former Green Bay Packers athlete as the most painful thing she had ever experienced.
“You know, when you live with somebody and it’s, like, your whole life,” she continued. “It’s your dentist appointment, it’s your hairdo, it’s your clothes, it’s your mailing address. It’s, like, everything.”
The retired NASCAR driver went on to allege that the “nature of the relationship was emotionally abusive,” which she claimed “wore [her] down to nothing.”
Someone that people could never imagine that I would lack any confidence or belief in the simple things about who I am,” she claimed. “Yeah, everything was down to bits.”
Patrick and Rodgers dated from 2018 to 2020. Patrick’s rep confirmed to Us that they were “no longer together” after she unfollowed the NFL star on social media.
Rodgers has never publicly discussed the end of their two-year relationship at length, nor responded to Patrick’s abuse allegations. Us Weekly has reached out for comment.
“He leaves a trail of blood. I don’t think I’m saying too much earth-shattering stuff after there’s been enough out there,” Patrick quipped on Wednesday’s episode. “[The breakup] gave me the greatest gift, which was myself. I was, like, ‘Wow.’ It gave me the greatest gift of how much I needed to show up for myself and take care of myself.”
During her podcast interview, Patrick further admitted that she had ignored signs of the alleged abuse at the time.
“I would say, ‘I’m built for hard things. I can handle hard things,’ and so, I just saw it as a hard thing,” Patrick said. “My nature is to try harder and to do more, and I was like, ‘What if I don’t do it for the right person? What if I just get a stick up my a** about this and get too proud?’”
According to Patrick, she “wished [she] would have tried” to leave the situation earlier.
“I don’t have shame and I don’t have regret because I know that everything leads to the next thing,” she added. “It’s all part of the path of learning the lessons and becoming who you are again. It’s not that you’re not going to go through hard times again, but learn how to get through them quicker [and] learn how to get through them more peacefully.”
Patrick later moved on with Carter Comstock before they split in 2022 after nearly one year together.
“I’m like, ‘Is my judgment the best?’ I don’t know,” Patrick exclusively joked to Us Weekly in May 2022, referring to the split. “I think that you just have to follow your heart and trust your intuition.”
She continued, “I think that’s something that increasingly over time, I’m doing a better job of. So just trust that intuition, look for … like right, if there are red flags at the beginning, like trust that [and] don’t just brush it off. I think those are the things that I’m beginning to realize are really critical. … I have no doubt that it’ll come along and [at the] perfect timing.”
Rodgers, for his part, was briefly engaged to actress Shailene Woodley after he and Patrick went their separate ways. Their on-off relationship ended for good in 2022, before he found love again with a currently unidentified partner.
“I’m in a different phase of my life,” Rodgers said on the Pat McAfee Show last month. “I’m 41 years old. I’m in a serious relationship. I have off-the-field stuff going on that requires my attention. I have personal commitments not knowing what my future was going to look like after last year that are important to me.”
Rodgers is an NFL free agent who has not yet formally signed with a new team ahead of the 2025-2026 season.
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 for confidential support.
