Don’t come for Derek Jeter!
Way back in 2011, a gossip columnist in NYC ran a now-infamous piece alleging the New York Yankees star shortstop had been giving out “gift baskets” to women with whom he’d hooked up. Kind of a “thank you for the hookup” gift we guess?
The piece took off in those halcyon early days of social media, and it quickly became a THING the baseball star had to deal with in the clubhouse every other time he found himself in a crowd of reporters. But now, in a new docuseries about the MLB star’s life and career, “Jeets” is trying to set the record straight once and for all!
Related: Mariah Carey Says Falling For Jeter As The ‘Catalyst’ Ended Her Marriage To Tommy Mottola!
In the article, which is now more than a decade old, Jeter was accused of “bedding a bevy of beauties in his Trump World Tower bachelor pad.” Those late-night events were supposedly followed by him “coldly sending them home alone with gift baskets of autographed memorabilia” that “usually” included a signed baseball from the Yankee Captain himself. The piece even ran quotes from “a friend of a woman” who supposedly slept with Jeets and received such an inedible arrangement.
But now, the Michigan native is coming forward with his version as part of a new seven-part series on ESPN! In The Captain, which premieres Monday, July 18, on the sports network, the 48-year-old former pro slugger shares his thoughts on the infamous report.
He never addressed the article during his playing days, but Jeets REALLY didn’t enjoy living through it at the time. According to The Daily Beast, when he’s finally asked about it in The Captain, the world-famous shortstop dryly says:
“Yeah, I read the article. Yeah, of course.”
The Yankees icon apparently shudders at how the 2011 article quickly took on a life of its own, too. In fact, Jeter claims, a man once walked up to him at a Starbucks and offered admiration over the post-coital move:
“I remember being at a Starbucks one time, and there’s some random guy behind me, and he says, ‘Hey, I just want to let you know that I’m giving out gift baskets because you did.’ And I turned around and said, ‘You’re a f**king idiot!’ And the look on his face, like, did he think I was gonna say, ‘Yeah, good job, man!'”
LOLz!!
Jeter continues in the doc, making his denial more explicit:
“You know, you see it, and then it’s like, how the f**k did people come up with this? You know, basically, that’s it. And who would believe this s**t? And you believed it!”
And finally he definitively concludes:
“It’s a story that became larger than life. People keep regurgitating this story that never happened. Never happened.”
Of course, Jeter has been linked to several high-profile women during his career, including Mariah Carey, Jessica Biel, and Minka Kelly. So clearly the press had an interest in his sex life. But the gift basket stuff was, according to the Yankee, pure tabloid B.S.!!!
In the forthcoming docuseries, Jeter also works through the effects of that gossip and the double standard it created for him in the locker room around his teammates, as he explains:
“Members of the media, they didn’t go around asking Bernie [Williams] what he and his wife did the night before. They didn’t go out and ask Tino [Martinez] or Paul O’Neill where they went to eat, and how late they were there, and who they were with. So I just didn’t think it was fair to ask me. You know, I think you have to draw the line. I drew the line at a very young age, and I just wasn’t going to let them cross it.”
To be fair, he was SO hot and dating some very famous women. OF COURSE people were intrigued! But good for him for holding his ground and keeping his private life how he wanted it: private!
And he’s happy now, too. Jeter has settled down with model Hannah Davis, and the couple share three daughters. Just goes to show the best revenge truly is living well!
Reactions, Perezcious readers??
[Image via Desus & Mero/YouTube]
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