The woman on the other end of Jim Edmonds’ inappropriate text messages is Jennifer McFelia Villegas — and she has an alleged past with multiple professional athletes, several sources tell Us Weekly exclusively.
The former baseball pro sent lewd photos and videos to Villegas while his wife, Meghan King Edmonds, was pregnant with their twin sons in 2018. Jim previously admitted to Us on June 13 that he had a “lapse in judgment,” but the former St. Louis Cardinals star maintained that he “never touched” another woman during his marriage to the Real Housewives of Orange County alum.
Meghan, meanwhile, spoke exclusively to Us after Villegas was identified.
“I only blame my husband for his actions: he made the choice to betray my trust and jeopardize our marriage,” the former Bravo star tells Us. “His recklessness also allowed this woman to profit from my heartbreak — but now that her name is out there, she won’t be able to shake down any other families as I rebuild mine.”
Villegas, for her part, responded to the accusations in a statement to AllAboutTheTea.
“I want to make a few things very clear — I never set anyone up, blackmailed anyone nor have I attempted to ruin anyone’s family. All my relationships have involved two consenting adults. I made a poor decision to enter a relationship with a married man, and for that I am sorry,” she said in the statement. “I am no saint. My past includes two DUIs and for that I am deeply remorseful and I’ve learned from my mistakes. My life today is completely devoted to my relationship with God and my daughter.”
Jim, however, is not the first professional athlete that Villegas has attempted to contact, a former wife of an MLB player claims to Us exclusively.
“My husband was a minor league player at the time and was on the road in Tennessee and she was at a game and somehow the two of them connected and exchanged phone numbers and contact information,” she tells Us. “She said that she worked at Under Armor and said she’d give him and his teammates apparel, would send them gear. … I got a Facebook message from a friend of hers, asking if I was still with my ex-husband.”
While her then-husband initially denied knowing Villegas, the former MLB wife tells Us that she caught him via a three-way phone call. “They were having a conversation and I was the third caller, the third person, and ended up having to catch him red-handed,” she claims. “It’s one of those things where you wake up every day and it’s on your mind and it’s one of those things that I didn’t know if I could get over. We separated five years after this happened and then finally divorced. I’ve wondered, too, over the years if they’ve been back in touch.”
She adds: “This is not just a jersey chaser who is impressed by a potential big name athlete and wants to sleep with him. … It was a whole mastermind manipulation scheme.”
According to a second source, Villegas has allegedly been contacting baseball players since 2003. “She will find a way to get around players who like to go out and cling to the ones that converse with her,” the second source claims.
Meanwhile, another former baseball player, Us Weekly‘s third source, claims Villegas reached out to him via an Instagram direct message in late 2016. “She’s known around the baseball world,” he tells Us. “I fell for it. Other people have fallen for it. There’s other people that have talked to her. She used to call me when she was talking to some dude from Cincinnati.”
The athlete also alleges to Us that Villegas contacted his current fiancée after he ended the relationship.
“I threatened her multiple times that I was going to get harassment charges on her if she keeps contacting me,” he explains. “If I didn’t answer the phone, she would keep calling until I did. … It’s an absolutely nightmare. To be honest with you, I wouldn’t force my worst enemy to have to deal with that.”
According to a fourth source, MLB security has been “notified many times about this woman, but has failed to take action.” However, a fifth baseball insider claims to Us that the organization did step in regarding Villegas’ actions in the past.
“[The MLB] did receive reports regarding the woman in question from 2008 and 2012, but they have not heard about an incident involving her since 2012. They had contact with her to stop certain conduct,” the fifth insider tells Us, claiming that Villegas has been “banned from individual parks.”
Villegas has also had trouble with the law in the past. Back in 2012, she was booked for driving under the influence in Georgia. In 2016, Villegas was accused of leaving “her infant daughter in her car … with no supervision,” according to court documents obtained by Us. As a result, she was fined $500, agreed to 12 months of probation and had to complete parenting courses and life skills classes.
Jim and Meghan, who tied the knot in October 2014, are parents of 2-year-old Aspen and 12-month-old twins Hayes and Hart. The lifestyle blogger wrote a lengthy post about Jim’s scandal on June 14, admitting she could no longer “trust” her husband of nearly five years.
“I’m a simple girl. I wanted a solid marriage. I’m as loyal as they come and I wanted the vows we made when we exchanged our rings to be acted upon. Now my wedding ring symbolizes fraud,” Meghan wrote. “Marriage is hard, we’ve been through our ups and downs, I’ve talked about it openly. A relationship takes two but it doesn’t take two to cheat.”
Meghan concluded that she has “hope” their marriage can “recover.”
“Marriage is a choice on the bad days. And on the good days marriage is easy and beautiful,” she explained. “No one said it would be easy, I just didn’t think it would be this hard.”
