Derek Jeter Learned to ‘Bite Your Tongue’ When It Came to Gossip About His Dating Life

Derek Jeter #2 of the New York Yankees looks on from the dugout prior to the game against the New York Mets on May 15, 2014 at Citi Field in the Flushing neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City. Yankees defeated the Mets 1-0

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Derek Jeter is opening up about how he dealt with gossip about his personal life as a former New York Yankees star.

The 48-year-old Hall of Famer joined The Eli Manning Show this week to chat with the former New York Giants quarterback about his time as one of the biggest stars in the city, and how he handled talk about who he was dating.

“A lot of times, you’ve got to bite your tongue on a daily basis,” Jeter told Manning. “With New York, I always felt as though you want to try to limit the distractions, and if you keep adding to a story, it just becomes a distraction for a long period of time.”

“So you address something once,” he continued. “I think there’s a lot of times people have stories out there you know are untrue, but if you do address it, then it just continues to go.”

Jeter, a five-time World Series champion with the Yankees, said that his approach to gossip was simply not responding to it.

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Derek Jeter with his family

Derek Jeter Instagram

“You have to bite your tongue in those situations,” he explained to Manning. “And then also, you were married younger than I was, so gossip pages know quite a bit on that.”

When asked if he missed Page Six, an arm of the New York Post, Jeter — who dated celebrities like Mariah Carey, Vanessa Lachey and Minka Kelly during his time in pinstripes, with their outings often making it into the news — joked that he has never said anything bad about the local tabloids.

“I will never say anything bad about the gossip pages, ever. Just on record, I did not say a bad thing about Page Six or the gossip pages,” he said. “I love all you guys. But yeah, anytime there’s something about your private life that’s not true, you’ve gotta bite your tongue.”

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Jeter has been married to his wife, model Hannah Jeter, since 2016, and they share three young daughters.

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In September, Jeter was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame with a ceremony at Yankee Stadium. He also was the focus of the ESPN docuseries, The Captain, where he shared what life was like in retirement.

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“The mornings are early … getting them up, they’re not in school right now, but dropping them off at school, picking them up. Tennis lessons, ballet lessons, you know,” he said in the series.

“They know that I played for the Yankees,” Jeter added. “They see me on TV. They recognize me, especially during this documentary. But other than that, they have no idea, and I like it that way.”