Another high-profile marriage has come to an end.
On Wednesday, football star and Today Show contributor Tiki Barber, 35, announced that he had separated from wife Ginny Cha after eleven years together. The couple, who parted ways last November, have two sons (aged 7 and 6) together, with two more on the way; Cha is now eight months pregnant with twins.
Behind the split? The former Giants running back’s apparent affair with Traci Lynn Johnson, 23 — a one-time NBC intern who also babysat their kids.
A source tells the New York Post that Cha “had no idea what was going on…There were no [apparent] problems in the marriage. Ginny is devastated by this. All of this came out of the blue.”
And Barber and Johnson’s affair was more than just a fling: the Post reports that they began sleeping together in 2008, when she was a 21-year-old college student. The athlete lavished gifts — roses, jewelry, designer clothes — on Johnson, and she flaunted her “boyfriend’s” blue Maserati on Facebook last September.
The lovers supposedly even lunched together in public at 30 Rock, NBC’s Manhattan headquarters.
“On her 21st birthday, he sent her 21 roses to her her dorm. He also gave her a diamond and sapphire bracelet,” a source tells the Post.
Barber’s rep would not comment beyond the statement released on Wednesday. “This decision was a painful one,” Barber said. “But we are moving forward amicably and will continue to work together to raise our children with the love and dedication they have always known.”
