A new documentary about Aaron Rodgers hints that former teammate Brett Favre might have been responsible for the viral rumors about Rodgers’ sexual orientation.
“Rumors of Aaron being gay, it always made me uncomfortable because nobody ever had any proof of anything. If it originated from Brett, I can see it originating as a ‘wink’ joke in one way or another,” Green Bay sports radio host Bill Michaels said on VICE TV’s Everybody Hates: Aaron Rodgers, which premiered on Tuesday, November 3.
Michaels added, “If you pound that joke enough, people start to take it for real.”
Speculation about Rodgers’ sexuality became such a talking point that the quarterback, now 42, was forced to address it during a 2014 radio interview with ESPN Milwaukee.
“I’m just going to say I’m not gay,” Rodgers said at the time. “I really, really like women. That’s all I can say about that.”
He added, “I mean, there’s always going to be silly stuff out there in the media that you can’t worry too much about, and I don’t. We just keep on trucking … I think there should be professional is professional and personal is personal, and that’s just how I’m going to keep it.”
Favre, 57, and Rodgers were teammates in Green Bay from 2005 to 2007. Us has reached out to Favre for comment about the allegations.
Rodgers has openly admitted that his relationship with Favre has not exactly been cordial over the years.
“He wasn’t super juiced on the idea of them drafting a quarterback in the first round,” Rodgers said in Netflix’s Aaron Rodgers: Enigma, which premiered in 2024. “So the first year was a little icy, shall we say?”
Rodgers added, “It was a big learning curve, for sure. Brett was close with the back-up [quarterback Craig Nall]. They were hunting bodies or whatever. So I was kind of the odd man out for a lot of that.”
The Packers selected Rodgers with the 24th overall pick in the 2005 NFL Draft, which Favre notoriously took as a slight as he was preparing to enter his 14th season as starting quarterback in Green Bay.
“I’m a California kid who’s dealing with a major ego death of not being the starter anymore,” Rodgers reflected in Enigma. “I can understand why I wasn’t first choice to hang out with. But it was definitely a shock in a lot of ways.”
He continued, “A lot of change, a lot to navigate. I’m the outsider in the QB room. I’m the heir apparent to a living legend who wants to keep playing. We’re a terrible football team. A lot of turmoil.”
Favre announced his retirement in 2008, though he later reversed course and the Packers traded him to the New York Jets. After one season in New York and two with the Minnesota Vikings, retired for good after the 2010 season.
Rodgers was the starting quarterback in Green Bay for 15 seasons from 2008 to 2022. He is currently in the midst of his second season with the Pittsburgh Steelers after spending two tumultuous years with the Jets.
