Gabrielle Union “felt entitled” to cheat on her first husband Chris Howard.
The 50-year-old actress said her marriage to the ex-NFL player – whom she wed in 2001 but split from in 2005 – was “dysfunctional from day one” and was desperate for “validation” from other men during the troubled relationship.
She told Dax Shepard on his ‘Armchair Expert’ podcast about seeing other men while married to the 47-year-old sportsman: “In our first marriage, neither one of us felt like the marriage should get in the way of our dating.
“A part of it was like keeping up with his activities, like, ‘Oh, that’s what you’re doing? You’re going to feel this one,’ and I just felt entitled to it as well… in hindsight, yes, I absolutely needed something from them (other men) that I was not providing for myself, and neither was my marriage, but I think I provided something for them too.
“Guys can be just as big as groupies – if not more – than women, so it was a trade off… we were both c***** people going through s*** and clearly not going to enough therapy.”
The ‘Bring It On’ actress added she was paying all the bills during their marriage which added to her feeling she was entitled to cheat.
She said: “Like my dad before me, whoever has the most gets to do whatever the hell they want is what I thought: It was just dysfunctional from day one.
“I wish I had more guilt for some of that. It was such a stupid relationship that should have never got out of the dating phase.”
Union and Howard split in 2005 and she said the financial weight of the split motivated he to get a pren-up for her second marriage to her current husband, 40-year-old former NBA player Dwyane Wade, with whom she had daughter Kaavia via surrogate in 2018.
She is also stepmother to his three other children.