Halle Berry’s ex-husband David Justice admitted that he questioned whether the Oscar winner was “the woman I want to have kids with” before their 1996 split.
“I was young and I had only, honestly, been in one relationship before her. My knowledge and my understanding, my wisdom around relationships just wasn’t vast,” Justice, 59, explained during an appearance on the “All the Smoke” podcast on Thursday, August 7. “So, I’m looking at my mom and I’m a Midwest guy. So, in my mind, I’m thinking a wife at that time should cook, clean.”
He went on, “Then I’m thinking, ‘OK, if we have kids, is this the woman I want to have kids with and build a family with?’ At that time, as a young guy, she don’t cook, don’t clean, don’t really seem like motherly, and then we start having issues. I’ll say this, we never had any issues about any women, other men.”
Berry, 58, and the former Major League Baseball star got married on New Year’s Day in 1993. According to reports, the couple started dating when Berry saw Justice playing in an MTV celebrity baseball game and slipped her number to a reporter they both knew.
Halle Berry was surprised by some fans’ reactions to her steamy Mother’s Day Instagram video with her boyfriend, Van Hunt. “Other women got in their feelings and [said], ‘Was it right for her to be in her bed, talking about spinning with her man?’ Yes,” Berry, 58, said on the Wednesday, June 4, episode of […]
The couple’s whirlwind marriage was constant fodder for the press in the mid 1990s. Berry and Justice separated in February 1996 and ultimately finalized their divorce in June 1997.
During his podcast appearance, the former World Series champion confessed that he had second thoughts about getting engaged to Berry shortly after she “asked me to marry her after knowing me for five months.”
“I said OK, because I couldn’t say no. Who’s going to say no at that time?” Justice recalled. “I don’t know if my heart was really into it, but I didn’t want to make her feel bad and say no, you know, or [if] I was just in the moment.”
David Justice and Halle Berry. Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic
Justice acknowledged that his and Berry’s relationship came at the worst possible time because both were building their careers, which meant they spent lots of time apart.
“We honestly probably could have made it if I knew about therapy. If we knew about therapy, we probably could have made it,” he said.
Us Weekly has reached out to Berry’s spokesperson for comment.
Following her relationship with Justice, Berry was married to Eric Benét between 2001 and 2005 and then to Olivier Martinez — with whom she shares son Maceo-Robert — from 2013 to 2016. The Catwoman actress welcomed daughter Nahla Ariela during her five-year relationship with Gabriel Aubry, and has been with musician Van Hunt since 2020.
Hunt revealed during a June 2025 appearance on NBC’s Today that he was still waiting for an answer after proposing to Berry. (The singer-songwriter was married once before, and has a son, but has not publicly disclosed details of that relationship.)
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“Well, I’ve been married three times,” she pointed out on Today. “Van has been married once, and so no, we don’t feel like we have to get married to validate our love in any way. We don’t.”
The actress added, “But I think we will get married just because, out of the people I’ve been married to, this is the person I should have married. And I feel like I should, we should get married, but it’s not because we feel like we have to. I think it’s something that we would like to do just because we want that expression.”
Justice and his second wife, Rebecca Villalobo, share three children: David Jr., Dionisio, and Raquel. (The retired MLB player and Villalobo tied the knot in February 2001.)
