Aaron Rodgers: Enigma is a three-part documentary on Netflix that follows the titular football quarterback, who tries to make a comeback in the NFL after suffering an Achilles injury in 2023 while playing for the New York Jets.
Apart from his professional career, the show delves into the footballer’s troubled family life. Aaron is estranged from his family, including his younger brother, Jordan Rodgers, a reality TV star and sports commentator.
The two brothers have had a long-standing feud, which came to light when Jordan participated in and eventually won the dating reality show The Bachelorette season 12. In Aaron Rodgers: Enigma, Aaron revealed he used to be close to Jordan but has been growing distant from him since high school.
Aaron Rodgers talks about what happened between him and Jordan in Aaron Rodgers: Enigma
In the second episode of Aaron Rodgers: Enigma, the quarterback addresses his fragile relationship with his brother, Jordan Rodgers. The quarterback revealed that while he was not close to anybody in his family from the beginning, this was not the case with his brother, and the two initially shared an amicable relationship.
However, they started growing apart in high school, and the distance only grew in college and after graduation. Aaron said:
“It wasn’t like I was super-duper close with everybody in the family. I was close with my little brother [Jordan]. But in actuality, it goes back to stuff from high school that kind of made me feel distant. Stuff in college, stuff post-college. I was quiet about it.”
In other parts of Aaron Rodgers: Enigma, the footballer disclosed that his strained relationship with his family stems from their dissimilar religious beliefs. While his family follows Christianity, Aaron has a different ideology. He cited fame as another factor behind his tumultuous relationships with his family members.
Aaron stated when he became famous, his family told him to ‘be smaller,’ which hurt him. Over the years, there have been rumors that Aaron’s girlfriends pulled him apart from his parents and siblings, but Aaron has refuted those claims.
Aaron Rodgers and Jordan Rodgers’ strained relationship
As Aaron explained in Aaron Rodgers: Enigma, he has had issues with his brother Jordan for several years. The feud first made headlines when Jordan appeared on JoJo Fletcher’s season of The Bachelorette in 2016.
During the hometown visit episode of the reality show, JoJo met with Jordan’s parents and oldest brother, Luke. However, Aaron was nowhere to be seen. Instead, two empty chairs were kept for the footballer and his then-girlfriend Olivia Munn.
Aaron expressed frustration over how his absence was handled in The Bachelorette, revealing that he was not invited for dinner that day and would not have gone even if he was invited. He said on Aaron Rodgers: Enigma:
“I thought the best way to do it was just don’t talk about it publicly. And what do they do? They go on a bulls*** show and leave two empty chairs.
They all agreed this was a good thing to do, to leave two empty chairs at a stupid dating show that my brother just went on to get famous – his words, not mine – that he ended up winning.
But a dinner that was during the season, I was never asked to go to. Not that I would’ve gone.”
Jordan eventually won the show and married JoJo in Mexico in 2022. However, Aaron did not attend the ceremony. Despite the differences, the footballer is open to reconciling with his parents and brothers. He told in the documentary:
“People ask me, ‘Is there hope for reconciliation?’ I say, ‘Yeah of course. Of course.’ I don’t want them to fail, to struggle, to have any strife or issues. I don’t wish any ill will on them at all. It’s more like this – we’re just different steps on a timeline of our own journeys.”
Aaron Rodgers: Enigma is streaming on Netflix.