WNBA star Maya Moore marries Jonathan Irons, the man she helped free from wrongful conviction

WNBA star Maya Moore left the league last year to focus her efforts on helping free Jonathan Irons from a wrongful conviction that carried a 50-year prison sentence. On July 1, Moore succeeded and Irons was released from prison. On Wednesday, during a live appearance on “Good Morning America,” both Moore and Irons announced that they got married over the summer.

“We’re super excited to continue the work we have been doing, but doing it as a married couple,” Moore said, before Irons happily showed the camera his wedding band. “We got married a couple months ago and are excited to continue this new chapter of life together.”

Though Moore put her WNBA career on hold in 2019 to help Irons, according to a report from the New York Times, her family initially met Irons through a prison ministry program over a decade ago. Moore herself met Irons in person for the first time prior to her freshman year at the University of Connecticut, around 2007.

Irons revealed on “Good Morning America” that he and Moore began having feelings for one another while Irons was still serving the wrongful conviction. He proposed to her while he was in prison, but didn’t want Moore to give him a real answer until he was released. Once he was released, Irons proposed again and the two have since tied the knot.

Irons was just 16 when he was tried as an adult back in 1998. A woman was robbed and shot in her St. Charles County, Missouri home and, despite no DNA or fingerprints being found at the scene, Irons was convicted of burglary and assault with a weapon. He was sentenced to 50 years in prison for the crime.

Throughout the legal process then and over the years, Irons claimed he was innocent. He was released from prison at 40 this summer.