Halle Berry’s first marriage was awful. In 1993, she married baseball player David Justice. They separated in 1996 and divorced in 1997. She went on to marry Eric Benet and then, years later, she married Olivier Martinez. She also had a partnership with Gabriel Aubry and she’s currently with Van Hunt. Before all of that, David Justice really f–ked her up. He was reportedly physically and emotionally abusive, and Halle sought a restraining order when they separated. But in a new interview, Justice says that he left Halle, and there was no abuse. Of course, he also says he left Halle because he couldn’t see her as a mother or a “traditional” wife who cooked and cleaned.
Halle Berry’s first ex-husband, David Justice, said he “decided to leave” the actress in 1996 because he couldn’t see her as the mother of his kids.
“My knowledge and my understanding, my wisdom around relationships just wasn’t vast,” the former MLB player said on Matt Barnes’ “All the Smoke” podcast Thursday.
“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, [be] traditional, you know?” Justice continued. “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.”
The former Atlanta Braves player, 59, confessed that their demanding careers also played a role in their split.
“We spent a lot of time apart because she was doing movies in this country, that country. And we honestly probably could have made it if I knew about therapy. If we knew about therapy, we probably could have made it,” he told Barnes, 45. “We never had any major issues like that. It’s just … because I was young and had only been in one real relationship before her,” Justice admitted.
The former athlete said he didn’t know if his “heart was really into it” when Berry, 58, asked him to marry her after they had only been dating for five months. “I said, ‘OK,’ because I couldn’t say no. Who’s going to say no at that time?” Justice shared, adding that he “didn’t want to make her feel bad.” Justice said he and Berry didn’t receive a lot of “negative attention until I decided to leave her in 1996.”
Berry sought a restraining order against Justice, citing fear for her “personal safety and well-being.” The former baseball star publicly denied the allegations at the time, saying he posed “no threat to Halle.”
“Halle had a relationship with a gentleman who hit her on the side of the head,” he explained, adding that she allegedly lost some hearing after it. Berry has never made the name of this man public, and while Justice says he understands this decision, people have, in turn, associated this rumor with Justice “for years.” “For people to think, ‘Oh it had to be David Justice,’ because the only person they associated her with was me … she said it was a former boyfriend, I’m not a former boyfriend, I was her husband,” he clarified. “From ’96 until even today, sometimes I’ll see someone on social media, ‘He hit her in the head’… that’s just a quick google search.”
Justice then directs his feelings towards Berry, who he says “never” said it wasn’t Justice. “She let the world think it,” he said. “She didn’t come out and say … ‘I’m not gonna say who it was but it wasn’t David.’”
The thing about the “traditional wife” is so…ugh. Men really score a bad bitch and they quickly find that they hate it and they try to do everything they can to clip her wings. Imagine coming home to Halle Berry (in the ‘90s!!) and instead of thinking “how did I ever score this goddess,” a dude thinks, “why isn’t she cleaning my bathroom?” As for Justice’s statements about the alleged abuse… over the years, Halle has let those stories sit out there. She’s never said on the record “it was David” or “it wasn’t David.” So I don’t know.
Halle Berry’s ex-husband, former MLB player David Justice, says he left because he couldn’t see her as the mother of his kids:
“She don’t cook, clean, don’t really seem motherly” pic.twitter.com/eVhwvnhmUL
— The Art Of Dialogue (@ArtOfDialogue_) August 10, 2025
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
-
- HALLE BERRY WITH DAVID JUSTICE STOCK IMAGE. 1995. PICTURES /,Image: 547353745, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WORLD RIGHTS – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Photoshot – sales@photoshot.com London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Florida: +1 239 689 1883 Berlin: +49 (0) 30 76 212 251, Model Release: no, Credit line: Nick Elgar/Avalon
-
- HALLE BERRY WITH DAVID JUSTICE STOCK IMAGE. 1995. PICTURES /,Image: 547353769, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WORLD RIGHTS – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Photoshot – sales@photoshot.com London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Florida: +1 239 689 1883 Berlin: +49 (0) 30 76 212 251, Model Release: no, Credit line: Nick Elgar/Avalon
-
- DAVID JUSTICE AND HALLE BERRY STOCK IMAGE. 11 JANUARY 1996. PICTURE / URW,Image: 547439079, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WORLD RIGHTS – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Photoshot – sales@photoshot.com London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Florida: +1 239 689 1883 Berlin: +49 (0) 30 76 212 251, Model Release: no, Credit line: Ron Wolfson/Avalon
-
- 23rd annual Harold & Carole Pump Foundation Gala at The Beverly Hilton. Featuring: Rebecca Villalobos, David Justice Where: Los Angeles, California, United States When: 18 Aug 2023 Credit: Abaca Press/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
One thing that leaps out at me is that he’s blaming *her* career for why they didn’t spend a lot of time together. As if baseball players spend all of their time at home. 🙄
Back in Justice’s playing day, MLB players were famous to have “dallies” at cities their teams visited on the road games; especially after their wives or girlfriends had kid and couldn’t tag alone on the road trips.
Unlike the other 3 Big League sports in USA, baseball has long season (almost half a year) and they played 5 to 6 games per week. Half the games are home games, the other half are away games; and after MLB, in order to get more audience, changed the format to let AL & NL teams play each others in regular season, these teams became to have very long road trips, for team from one coast to the other coast, the trip would be 7 to 10 days easily.
However, Justice earned big money during his MLB career, what’s wrong with hiring people (who need work & money) to maintain your house & help with children? BTW, his mother was working, just like Halle. Halle worked in film industry and his mother worked at home front with domestic chores.
Can confirm, at least for one team.
Back in the 90s I worked for an answering service.
Major client: the L*kers.
All the players had alpha pagers, & they gave out the phone number that we answered, to anyone they wanted to be able to reach them.
Almost all the calls were from women wanting to set times to meet up, or openly offering sex for tickets or just for fun.
Those were bad enough, but the worst calls were from the player’s wives. One I’ve never forgotten “Tell him his baby needs diapers and we need to pay the rent this week! He can call me or I can move out and take both the kids. Page it out just like that, every word, you hear me lady??!?”
It was horrifying, especially considering the other calls I was taking for that same dude. Talk about peak misogyny.
Laywers, can you get restraining order against a guy who doesn’t pose credible threat to your safety?
Because this man sounds like a liar to me.
I sure can’t, and my lawyer says that’s the law. So even though he’s been verbally abusive and physically intimidating, and I’m genuinely in fear of him someday being so furious that he shoots me with his gun, I’m stuck living with my soon to be ex husband in the same house, which I own and he refuses to pay to live in, until the divorce is final.
I have to plan where to stay next week when he officially gets served divorce papers because he still thinks this will “blow over” and/or he can bully me out of filing for divorce and will be irate when he finally gets served.
Ladies, if there’s one piece of advice I can offer, it’s this: get a prenup with everything spelled out in minute detail!
Just keep yourself safe, even if it means sleeping on friends couches and getting police to escort you into your own house to get your things.
He was out of his league with Halle back then and it shows even more now.
Associating being motherly to slaving after your family is peak misogyny.
Well said! I’m from the Midwest, got pregnant & married very young. I was divorced by 25 because I saw that “trad wife” crap that I was expected to be & got the heck out. This was the 90s & it hasn’t changed.
It was Wesley Snipes that abused her and damaged her hearing. Seems like Justice wanted some attention and he a trade wife. Something is going on with folks and these podcasts. They say the stupidest crap! Was there a reason why he couldn’t hire a housekeeper to cook and clean?
I thought it was Eddie Murphy…???
@deering. Nah it was Snipes. Thats pretty much common knowledge now.
She was in a movie with Murphy, not sure they dated.
Sunshine—thanks!
That’s what “the wife” is for, @Chica. Also, I’m side eying his claim that she was begging him to marry her.😏
Yes! I remember reading a joint interview where she said she asked him, but he said he was planning on asking her anyway. He didn’t want her to feel bad literally made my eyes roll out of my head. Such a kind soul this one!
This is the most attention David has gotten in years, maybe if he had let sleeping dogs lie, the stories of him being a wife beater would not be all over X.
There was a long period of time where Halle’s marketing talking points whenever she had a movie coming up always made their way back around to her previous abusive relationship(s). It almost seemed like she was working it out in her interviews as therapy.
She don’t Cook She don’t Clean! and what is your point? so employ someone who can fill in those gaps She was working just as hard as you. you saw someone shiny, you wanted to possess and then try to bend to your will. When i saw the head lines i was like who the heck is this, i thought i knew all the men she married so obviously he didn’t register with her Fans, i’ve been a fan since the Boomerang days when we all wanted her hair cut
I thought his point was that he didn’t know about better than to expect a wife to be just like his mother?? Not defending those expectations at all, but I got the sense that he realized after the fact that he was too narrow-minded and inexperienced and just plain dumb.
He was THIRTY frickin’ years old — not exactly a fledgling adult.
Yeesh. 🤮🤮 Trevor Noah had some pointed stuff to say about this mindset. And Justice is definitely more awful than the creep who cheated on Michelle Pfieffer…and I thought he was bad..🤬
Who cheated on Michelle Pfieffer?!?
Fisher Stevens.
That one still blows my mind. I know physical attractiveness is not everything, but FISHER STEVENS managed to land MICHELLE EFFING PFIEFFER and screwed it up?!? Crazy talk. Pure madness.
I will never not think this is funny: FISHER STEVENS cheated on MICHELLE PFEIFFER. Proof that fidelity isn’t about looks.
Does he cook and clean? If she were supposedly gone all the time, how was she supposed to be doing this anyway? Dude doesn’t even make sense.
I remember he played for Cleveland starting in 97, and when he was announced at centerfield at his first home game, dude got booed HARD. I was at that game with my grandad, and he leaned over and told me “We protect our own in this city. He should’ve known you never mistreat a woman and certainly not one of our own.” Justice didn’t gain many fans during his tenure there.
Also, Justice is from freaking Cincinnati – so spare me the “I’m a Midwestern guy” BS. Misogyny isn’t a regional thing – it’s an a-hole thing.
At Yankee Stadium the crowd used to chant “Halle Berry” at him. At every home game. He was on our team and we hated him anyway. New York was always Team Halle.
😂😂😂 I’m hardly a Yankee fan, but this is brilliant…😈👍🏾
I love to hear this. Those are some smart fans!
These men really don’t go for the pick mes and the ones that will cook and clean, they go after the free confident, independent woman so they can break her down, her spirit, and mold her into the type of woman they want. Regardless it will never be enough and will continue to find fault in anything she does. All this reminds me of what Trevor Noah said about how men dream about putting an exotic bird in a cage. Men like him eventually get bored and move on to the next “exotic bird” he can put in cage.
Nothing will _ever_ be enough for guys like this. Their weak-ass egos demand that women constantly validate them…but since they hate themselves, they’ll never be satisfied.
That’s just jealousy over her success in her career. Like someone said above, these are two well off people – they could afford to hire a housekeeper to cook and clean.
If you want to marry your mother, maybe just continue to live with your mother.
So this was like 30 something years ago, he’s been married for decades with three children and still talking about Halle
If you chased off Halle Berry, you’d still be talking about it too.
@Sophia,
Everyone from the 90’s is out blabbing away right now. I think it’s some celebrity thing that after 30 years you can just start running your mouth and spilling the tea.
That’s funny I remember seeing his current wife on celebrity wife swap and she didn’t seem like the kind to cook and clean either. She seemed like a stuck up ahole, just constantly complained about how small everything was. Mind you she swapped with Dweziel Zappa’s girlfriend, and they lived in a normal sized house.
Why is he even talking about her? This is gross. He needs to go wash his own dang dishes.
Although he is currently married (I’d be pissed if this was my husband and 30 years later he is still talking about his ex), he is showing why the male loneliness epidemic is wholly self imposed. The mentality of these men – like we are here to serve them. She was working full time! Did he cook and clean? He was rich AF back then he couldn’t hire a housekeeper or a chef? His whole goal was to take her down a peg. He is a jealous, petty person, who expected her to quit her career and follow him around so he can leave her later for someone else and say it’s because she bored him, had no life of her own or no ambition. Fuck this guy. Instead her star went on the rise and she literally ascended to an Oscar while this dude got served with child support papers on the field.
I think there is info out there that it was Wesley Snipes who damaged Halle’s hearing. The only thing we suspected Dave of is being a complete douchebag, which he proved right here with this interview. His comments are peak toxic masculinity he needs to take all the seats for real.
Damn straight.
One thing I learned early in life is when a man starts comparing you to his mother, it’s time to run. Either he’s looking for another mommy or he wants a do over for the toxic relationship he has with his mother. Either way. Put on them Hokas and sprint.
It’s way way way past time for that “I Want A Girl Just Like The Girl Who Married Dear Old Dad” mess to die…🤮🤮🤮🤮
This is not because he’s from the Midwest. It’s because this guy is an a-hole. We’ll take blame for tater-tot casseroles and jello salad, but not trad-wife nonsense. That’s all over the US.
😂 🤣 😂 🤣 😂 🤣 Right? Don’t blame Ohio, you jackhole.
This Californian loves y’all for tater-tot casseroles- you get no blame for this d-bag, or those casseroles.
Damn, I’m hungry now!
What a pathetic loser. Nothing going on so he has to talk about her and how she wouldn’t be his Mommy. Gross.
If he wanted a traditional wife maybe he should’ve asked these questions before marrying her?
That being said Halle Berry is no prize either given her trail of failed relationships and custody battles.
The only good thing is that they didn’t have kids together.
I don’t get how her “failed relationships” have anything to do with him being an ass. Also because you view her relationships as failed has nothing to do with their success or failure.
They don’t but people act as if Halle is above reproach my point is neither of them are a prize. Halle’s relationship history is surprisingly messier than his despite people here thinking David Justice is worse than she is. I mean she was in custody battles with both of her baby daddies. If all the men she gets with are terrible what does that say about her decision making?
For a long time Black folks know it was Wesley Snipes that busted Halle’s ears out. But she won’t say it is not David Justice, not Al B. Sure, not Eddie Murphy and other famous men she dated from this era of her fame. They just want her to say it is not them even if she doesn’t name who it is. As for Halle not being motherly and cooking and clean, she is an icon of cinema and David Justice is just anther average MLB player. Halle doesn’t need to cook and clean.
The fact that a MOC is whining that a WOC won’t cook and clean nowadays is rock-frickin-stupid. That’s why WOC got education (at their female relatives’ urging)—so their options wouldn’t be limited to being a maid.
If I had Halle Berry’s money, why on Earth would I be cooking and cleaning? Also, I’ve never heard of this dude, but I’ve damn sure heard of Halle Berry. What a moron?!
It seems like he was admitting he was dumb, but he’s not that articulate so it seems to have come out the wrong way. I’m only speculating. I could be off.. He doesn’t sound that smart but might be smart enough to know he’s not smart….
What an absolute ass. He’s had therapy, since? Why on god’s green earth would he want to open his mouth in public and say stupid shit like this?
#TeamHalle
As someone who lives in GA and is a Braves fan, all I’m going to say is 🤣🤣
We remember you and your off field activities.
Someone tell this ass to f-ck off.
This seems like a very mature statement, admitting he was young ignorant and wrong
He sounds like a narc in this interview. Halle looks to be happy with her current guy so I wish her the best.
She’s well rid of him. Good riddance. Pro athletes cheat like crazy and that’s a fact. They’re on the road a lot, pretty groupies all over them. I know, I dated an NHL player back in the day and the guy was a total dog. Thankfully he got traded away and that was that. I had a friend who had a long term relationship with a very ‘married with children’ player with the Texas Rangers. He’d actually fly her to locations where he was playing.
I love Halle Berry, but she has terrible taste in men.
I can’t wait for the next article about the backlash this POS gets after telling the world what a misogynistic pr1ck he is! Practically rubbing my hands in glee.