Jerry Rice And Latisha Pelayo Are Married — All The Deets On The NFL Legend's Wedding
They got married after more than a decade together.
Getty Jerry Rice is one of the greatest football players of all time. The 57-year-old retired Pro-Bowler is the career leader in most major categories for wide receivers, the position he played during his 20-year career. He has league records for receptions, touchdown receptions and receiving yards. He has also been the leader for total yards and touchdowns in a season. Rice has scored more points than any other non-kicker in NFL history with 1,256. This weekend he scored a wife.
The Hall of Famer and Dancing with the Stars runner up got married to his long-term girlfriend Latisha Pelayo in Napa over the weekend. The pair have been together since his divorce from his first wife but they only got engaged in 2018. He proposed to her at a charity event hosted by the family of the 49ers' owners Eddie DeBartolo. The couple lives together in California where he plays a lot of golf and promotes his energy drink GOAT Fuel. His wife keeps a lower profile but she used to be in the beauty sales business.
Who is Jerry Rice's wife?
1. Long term relationship
People magazine notes that Rice was married one time before to Bernice Mitchell. They got hitched in 1987 and had three children together before splitting in 2007. Rice had already gotten involved with Pelayo in 2008, though his divorce wasn't officially finalized until 2009.
2. Who is Latisha?
According to the website FabWags, Latisha is a licensed esthetician who owned a skincare salon at one time. She allegedly met Rice at the gym, which must have been something. The man who is considered to be the greatest wide receiver in NFL history probably has quite a workout routine. No wonder he caught Pelayo's eye.
3. Keeping a low profile
These days Pelayo keeps her social media account private so there isn't much information about what she does with her days. Rice posts photos of her looking gorgeous in their equally gorgeous house, where they live with their dogs. They have a cute weekly tradition of posting selfies as they share mimosas with friends every weekend and use the hashtag #MimosaSunday.
They share mimosas every Sunday.
4. Public marriage proposal
Rice proposed to Pelayo at the DeBartolo Family Foundation gala in 2018. TMZ had a video of Rice at the podium giving a speech with Pelayo standing off to one side when he said he had some words he wanted to say to her. “I have four words that I want to say to her. That I want to say to this woman that has supported me for so many years,” Rice says in the clip. “Latisha … will you marry me?” She nodded wordlessly and he sank to one knee to present her with a ring. The crowd burst into applause as the Hall of Famer slipped the ring on his fiancé's finger. The camera was too far away to catch the details of the ring, unfortunately.
5. Wedding in Napa
The wedding photos that the couple released exclusively to People are nothing short of gorgeous. The magazine reports that they held their ceremony and reception at Calistoga Ranch in Napa Valley and it looks like the weather cooperated so that they could spend a good deal of the festivities outdoors. Rice wore glasses and a white jacket over a black shirt and tie. Pelayo wore a beaded mermaid gown with her hair cascading over her shoulders and carried a mix of pink and cream roses. They also had a multi-tiered wedding cake in shades of cream and gold that looked almost too pretty to eat.
6. Jerry Rice: Wedding Expert
Rice might have had some serious opinions about what his wedding should be like because he goes to a lot of them. Not as a wedding guest: as a wedding crasher. In 2017, The Ringer published an article about Rice's habit of approaching weddings and asking if he can step in and congratulate the bride and groom. It's something he has been doing since he retired from the NFL in 2006. He said it wasn't really a planned thing but he discovered that after he finished a round of golf at a country club, there would often be a wedding taking place. He made it a habit to congratulate the couple, dance a little, and take photos if they were into it. "If the music is going, I love music. I don’t mind getting out there, dancing, having a good time,” Rice said. “Because I did Dancing with the Stars, people at weddings want to dance with me because they think I’m some sort of professional dancer.”
He says he usually tries to leave after 20 minutes or so because he never wants to take the attention away from the bride and groom, but generally, everyone present gets a kick out of having him there as a surprise guest.
No one appears to have crashed Rice's wedding. Best wishes to the happy couple.
Rebekah Kuschmider has been writing about celebrities, pop culture, entertainment, and politics since 2010. Her work has been seen at Ravishly, Babble, Scary Mommy, The Mid, Redbook online, and The Broad Side. She is the creator of the blog Stay at Home Pundit and she is a cohost of the weekly podcast The More Perfect Union.