Ouch. Anne Wojcicki’s mother, Esther, questioned the intelligence of her daughter’s ex-boyfriend Alex Rodriguez in a new interview.
“He seemed to be genuinely in love with Anne. But I right away figured out this was a mismatch,” Esther told The New York Times in a profile published on Saturday, November 18. “He had no academic background. We couldn’t have an intellectual conversation about anything. His main interest in life was something that none of us had ever focused on, which was baseball.”
The journalist claimed that the former New York Yankees player, 42, often spent long periods of time watching television. “He could park himself in front of a TV and watch baseball for 10 hours a day,” she said. “He wasn’t even sure he wanted to go on the yacht with Anne because the TV might not be working.”
Despite her concerns, Esther did have a few nice things to say about Rodriguez. “I liked A-Rod, he was a very nice man,” she told the newspaper. “He came from a Hispanic family. We liked them, they were very sweet.”
A-Rod and Wojcicki, 44, split in late 2016 after nearly a year and a half of dating. Esther hinted in her interview that the former athlete’s stardom played a role in the demise of his relationship with her daughter, who is the cofounder and CEO of the genetics firm 23andMe.
“We couldn’t go anywhere with him,” Esther told the Times. “If we went to Target to look for clothes for the kids, all of a sudden we’d be looking around and people would be saying, ‘We just want a selfie with A-Rod.’ He can’t walk across Central Park. He has to take a cab. That will work better with [his current girlfriend, Jennifer Lopez] because she’s like, ‘Take a picture of me anytime.’ … I wish J. Lo all the luck in the world.”
For her part, Lopez, 48, has nothing but kind words for her beau of nine months. “He doesn’t let anything beat him,” she told Vanity Fair in the couple’s joint December cover story. “He just comes back stronger.”
