David Justice on Halle Berry: ‘She don’t cook, don’t clean,’ didn’t seem ‘motherly’

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.’”

[From Page Six and The Root]

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.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.