Kelsey Plum’s ex-husband is Darren Waller, the NFL tight end who retired in June 2024. The two married in Las Vegas on March 4, 2023, and filed for divorce together on April 23, 2024, thirteen months in.
Celebrity divorces tend to reach the public through lawyers and anonymous friends. This one didn’t. Both athletes have spoken about it on the record, at length, and the documented account is sadder and more human than the jokes that circulated when the news broke.
How the Marriage Ended
The wedding was a private Las Vegas ceremony, held while both careers were peaking there: Plum starring for the Aces, Waller for the Raiders. Ten days after the ceremony, the Raiders traded Waller to the New York Giants for a third-round draft pick, and the newlyweds became a cross-country couple almost overnight.
They never lived a full season in the same city again.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| March 4, 2023 | Private wedding ceremony in Las Vegas |
| March 14, 2023 | Raiders trade Waller to the New York Giants |
| Fall 2023 | Plum wins her second straight WNBA title with the Aces; Waller logs 52 catches for 552 yards in New York |
| November 2023 | Waller spends three and a half days in the hospital after a medical emergency |
| April 23, 2024 | Joint petition for divorce filed in Clark County, Nevada |
| June 2024 | Waller announces his retirement from the NFL |
The filing itself says a lot. A joint petition is Nevada’s uncontested route: both spouses sign the same paperwork, agree on terms in advance, and skip the courtroom fight entirely. ESPN reported the filing with no allegations attached, and none have surfaced since.
Who Is Darren Waller?
Darren Waller is a former Pro Bowl tight end whose eight NFL seasons ran through Baltimore, Las Vegas and New York, and whose public identity was forged by beating addiction. His last Raiders contract paid $51 million over three years.
Waller has said he started taking oxycodone at 15 and drinking at 16. Georgia Tech suspended him twice. The NFL benched him four games in 2016 for violating its substance-abuse policy, then a full year in 2017, and by his own account cocaine had entered the picture by then. Rehab came during that lost year, reinstatement in 2018, and the sober second act of his career made him a league-wide recovery story on the HBO series Hard Knocks, per his Wikipedia biography.
One detail almost nobody expects: Waller is the great-grandson of jazz legend Fats Waller, whose “Ain’t Misbehavin'” belongs to the Grammy Hall of Fame. Music was in the family long before it complicated a divorce.
The Song That Made the Divorce Go Viral Twice
After the filing, Waller released “Who Knew (Her Perspective)”, a breakup track written about the marriage. The song alone might have passed quietly. The music video could not: an actress playing a Plum-like figure embraces Waller on a beach, stabs him in the back, and leaves him bleeding into the surf while the tide slaps his face.
Sports media reactions, as Yahoo put it, alternated between derision, confusion and outright laughter. Whatever the artistic intent, the video cemented the divorce as internet lore and pushed “Kelsey Plum ex husband song” into search bars for good.
What Kelsey Plum Has Said About the Split
Plum has been blunt about the cost. “Going through a very public divorce is something I was not expecting,” she told ESPN during the 2024 playoffs. “It felt like the rug got taken out from under me. I think people may look at me like, ‘Oh, she’s super tough.’ But this one really broke me.”
She deleted social media, got a new phone with very few numbers in it, and spent the season reading her Bible off camera. That summer she also modeled for a Skims campaign and kept starting for a title contender, which is its own kind of statement.
Waller, for his part, went on The Breakfast Club and blamed no one but himself: “Anytime I’m in a relationship, I feel like I got to dance or do a certain thing to keep this person around… you realize how much you lose yourself.” He described entering the marriage without the healing he needed, in the full interview.
Where Both Stand Now
Plum left Las Vegas and was starting for the Los Angeles Sparks by the 2026 season, still one of the WNBA’s premier guards. Waller stepped away from football in June 2024 and has kept making music. No cheating scandal, no lawsuit, no tell-all followed the divorce, and neither has publicly remarried.
What remains confirmed is small and stark: a ten-day marriage in the same city, a year of distance, and two people who each rebuilt alone.
FAQ
Why did Kelsey Plum and Darren Waller divorce?
Neither has named a single cause. Waller has said he entered the marriage without the emotional tools for long-term commitment, and the trade to New York ten days after the wedding kept them apart for the entire marriage.
How long were Kelsey Plum and Darren Waller married?
About thirteen months: from their private Las Vegas wedding on March 4, 2023, to the joint divorce petition filed in Clark County, Nevada, on April 23, 2024.
Is Kelsey Plum’s ex-husband married now?
No public record shows Darren Waller has remarried since the 2024 divorce. He has kept his private life quiet since retiring from the NFL, surfacing mainly through his music releases.
Who is Kelsey Plum’s new husband?
Kelsey Plum has no new husband. She has not remarried since the divorce, and no relationship has been confirmed by her or anyone representing her, whatever fan speculation suggests.
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