Photo: Getty Images
Former Major League Baseball star David Justice gave a blunt reason why his marriage to Academy Award-winning actress Halle Berry didn't last during an appearance on the All the Smoke podcast released last week.
“Because I was young and I had only, honestly, been in one relationship before her, my knowledge and my understanding, my wisdom around relationships just wasn’t vast,” Justice said.
“So, I’m looking at my mom and I’m a Midwest guy,” he added. “So, in my mind, I’m thinking a wife at that time should cook, clean. Then I’m thinking, ‘OK, if we have kids, is this the woman I want to have kids with and build a family with?’”
“At that time, as a young guy, she don’t cook, don’t clean, don’t really seem like motherly, and then we start having issues,” Justice said of Berry. “I’ll say this, we never had any issues about any women, other men.”
Justice and Berry met in May 1992 and were married in January 1993. The relationship was heavily publicized in tabloids when they separated in February 1996 and finalized their divorce in June 1997.
The two-time World Series champion said his marriage to Berry didn't get "a lot of negative attention" from the media "until I decided to leave her in 1996."
“She asked me to marry her after knowing me for five months,” Justice said during his All the Smoke podcast appearance. “I said OK, because I couldn’t say no. But I don’t know if my heart was really into it, but I didn’t want to make her feel bad and say no, you know. I was just in the moment.”
The three-time All-Star added that he and Berry "spent a lot of time apart" when the actress' career got busier.
“We honestly probably could have made it if I knew about therapy,” Justice said. “If we knew about therapy, we probably could have made it.”
Justice spent the first eight seasons of his MLB career with the Atlanta Braves before stints with the then-Cleveland Indians, New York Yankees and Oakland Athletics, winning the 1995 and 2000 World Series with the Braves and Yankees, respectfully.