Naomi Osaka, Boyfriend Cordae Break Up After Welcoming Baby
Naomi Osaka announced she and boyfriend Cordae broke up more than one year after welcoming daughter Shai.
“Hi everyone, just wanted to say that Cordae and I are no longer in a relationship. No bad blood at all, he’s a great person and an awesome dad,” the tennis professional, 27, wrote in a statement via Instagram Stories on Monday, January 6.
Naomi continued the post by sharing she is “really glad” that their “paths crossed” because they welcomed Shai during their relationship, whom she called her “biggest blessing.”
“I was able to grow a lot from our experiences together,” the ESPY award-winner concluded the statement.
Naomi and Cordae, 27, started dating in 2019 and were photographed on their first date together at a Clippers home game in Los Angeles that December.
“We were on FaceTime trying to find each other because the arena was so big. And I just remember seeing that there were so many people who wanted to take a picture with him,” Naomi told GQ during a joint interview with Cordae in 2021. “And I just thought it was really cool how friendly and welcoming he was with everyone.”
However, Cordae watched Naomi take the court at the U.S. Open in August 2019, making it the first tennis tournament he’s ever attended.
“I don’t know if I ever told Naomi this or not, but I felt really out of place. Like, that was my first time being in an environment like that in my entire life,” he admitted to the publication. “My elementary school, middle school, high school was 99.9 percent Black. Kids who look like me. It just felt really weird for me being in that space. That was my first tennis match ever.”
Later in the interview, Naomi shared the hardships of dating a musician who writes and records into the late hours of the night.
“He has such a completely different work style than me. I start super early in the morning, and then I end late afternoon. But I feel like for him everything starts at night,” the Japan native later explained to the publication. “So, it was kind of hard to adjust to that in the beginning. But when I did, I felt pretty comfortable. I wouldn’t say there was a moment where I felt like he did when he went to the Open or anything like that.”
Naomi and Cordae maintained a lowkey relationship following their joint interview.
In January 2023, Naomi announced she was pregnant via X. “I know that I have much to look forward to in the future, one thing I’m looking forward to is for my kid to watch one of my matches and tell someone, ‘that’s my mom,’ haha,” she wrote. “2023 will be a year that’ll be full of lessons for me and I hope I’ll see you guys in the start of the next one cause I’ll be at [Australian Open] 2024.”
Naomi gave birth to daughter Shai in July 2023.