Nikki Spoelstra speaks out on struggles as she enters next phase after divorce from Heats $120 million coach
Nikki Spoelstra called herself out on her “bulls–t.” In a candid interview with the Miami Herald, Nikki opened up about what was described as her “next phase as a single mom in recovery” — and looked back at her DUI arrest, alcoholism and her divorce from Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra.“People are very quick to label women golddiggers.
Like, ‘Oh, if she is with a successful person, she must be in it for the money,’” Nikki, 37, said of Spoelstra, who landed an eight-year, $120 million contract extension with Miami in January 2024, weeks after the couple announced their divorce in late 2023.“Do you really think that’s all a husband brings to the table? In the end, no one really knows what happened.”Nikki, a former Heat dance, was at the center of online ridicule in the wake of Spoelstra’s nine-figure extension, with some stating she “fumbled the bag.” At the time, Nikki addressed those comments on social media and encouraged others to “be nicer.”The “Becoming: HER” podcast host was married to Spoelstra, 54, for seven years and they share three children: sons Santiago, 6, and Dante, 4, and daughter, Ruby, 2.In the interview with the Miami Herald, Nikki recalled being arrested for DUI before she started dating Spoelstra.“That mugshot was like my coming out in Miami society, and I remember feeling so much shame and embarrassment,” she said.“This is a cruel, cruel world I’m walking into.”She sought treatment for her drinking around the time of the COVID-19 pandemic.“I was newly sober.
I was married to a public figure, and I was having a very real reckoning with my identity and who I was becoming and what I wanted as a grown woman and mother,” Nikki said.“I started to have these conversations with people who I thought were really celebrating their own sense of deep knowing and experts in different industries.
The response was really positive.”Nikki openly discusses her sobriety, treatment and recovery on her “...