It's no joke: Kaká's ex-wife left him for being too perfect
Kaká, known for his impeccable character both on and off the pitch, has long been admired as a model athlete. He was the Ballon d'Or winner in 2007, and a legend for AC Milan and the Brazilian national team. However, this image of being the "perfect man" seemed to weigh heavily on his private life.
Kaká and Caroline Celico's marriage was seen as a perfect union in the public eye, blending his football stardom with her involvement in faith and music.
They were considered a power couple, admired for their commitment to family and faith. However, despite their seemingly ideal life, the pressures of fame and personal struggles eventually led to their separation in 2015, marking the end of their decade-long marriage.
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"We would like to inform you that after almost nine years of marriage, we have decided to separate by mutual consent. From our union, we have two children, whom we love very much. In recognition of the importance of each other in the lives of the other, we continue to have respect, gratitude, and admiration for each other," the couple's statement read.
The deep religious convictions of both led them to confirm that they had decided to remain virgins until marriage: "My wife and I chose to remain chaste until marriage. The Bible teaches that true love is achieved only through marriage, through the exchange of blood, which a woman loses with her virginity," explained Kaká.
"Of course it weighed on me, I'm a normal young man. It wasn't easy to get married without ever having been with a woman. Caroline and I kissed and the desire was there, but we always knew how to hold back. If our life is so beautiful today, I think it's because we knew how to wait," he confessed then.
In the end, things were not as pretty as they had painted them, and that news came as a bombshell. And, although a month later they announced their reconciliation with a post on social media in which they wrote "Happily ever after", it was nothing more than a mirage.
The lack of answers about this unexpected breakup gave rise to rumors about alleged infidelities within the couple, but nothing could be further from the truth. In an interview that Celico gave to the newspaper 'The Sun' in April 2024, she finally confessed the surprising reason why it happened: Kaká was too perfect of a man!
"Kaká never betrayed me, he always treated me well, and he gave me a wonderful family, but I wasn't happy, something was missing. The problem was that he was too perfect for me," she shared during the interview.
The former footballer, for his part, echoed his ex-wife's words in a podcast in Brazil, where he corroborated her version of what happened: "In 2015 I was married and my wife at that time decided that she no longer wanted to be married. She told me: 'I'm not happy and I attribute my unhappiness to marriage.'"
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At the time, Kaká had just arrived in the American MLS to play for Orlando City, and Celico told her that her wish was to leave the United States and return to her country. A request that she made to him said: "I want to go back to Brazil, I want to live there and I don't want to be married anymore," as the former player confessed in his interview.
"I did everything to prevent the divorce from happening, because that's where the conflict for Christians comes in. We're taught that Christians don't get married and then get divorced. So I decided to fight with everything I had," Kaká explained.
In this sense and under the deep faith that he professes, the former Brazilian footballer told his interviewers that, to deal with the situation he was living, he read a book called 'Prova de Fogo'. "The book is great, for anyone who has problems in their marriage I recommend it," he said.
Finally, Kaká and Celico ended their relationship in December of that same year 2015, when she left for Brazil, as she had wished, and signed the divorce papers there. Meanwhile, the then-MLS player spent a whole year facing the reality of that separation alone.
"I understood that if you are a Christian and you seek the Lord and you want to continue, it's fine. If your partner doesn't want to, you say amen and go in peace. You shouldn't force things, you can't force anyone to stay with you," he concluded.
A year after his divorce from Celico, Kaká began dating Brazilian model Carol Dias. The two built a strong relationship, and in 2019, they got married. Their bond grew even stronger when they welcomed two daughters, Esther and Sarah, into their family.
The day he proposed, both posted on their social media. He posted a photo of the two of them and a text that said: "And she made me the happiest man on Earth. I promise to pay you back and make you the happiest woman in the world. I love you, Carol Días,"while she posted a brief but forceful "I said yes!"
Celico, for her part, also remarried, in her case, to businessman Eduardo Scalpa, with whom she has had her third child, Rafael, who was born in May 2024, and with whom she once again leads a happy life.
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