Being Mom And Dad

England soccer legend Rio Ferdinand talks about being a widower and raising three young kids alone.

- Jane Vorster

HE’S never been the kind of guy who’s comfortable wearing his heart on his sleeve. Tears are for sissies. You don’t win soccer matches by crying and feeling sorry for yourself – or at least this was the pep talk Rio Ferdinand used to give his teammates in the England dressing room.

Which was why fans were stunned to see the former skipper sobbing as he poured his heart out in a candid documentary, Being Mum and Dad, about how a personal tragedy turned his whole world upside down.

What do you do when the person you love most in the world dies suddenly and traumatically? How do you explain to your young children that their mother is never coming back? 

Two years after his beloved wife Rebecca’s death from a very aggressive form of breast cancer, the soccer legend is still struggling to find answers.

“I had an unbelievable life – a fantastic wife and great kids,” Rio (38) says in the touching documentary. “And then, bang, the moment Rebecca was diagnosed with cancer, it all changed.”

Rebecca (who died when she was 34) was first treated for breast cancer in 2013. She thought she had beaten it but in March 2015 doctors gave her the bad news: it was back and had spread. There was nothing more they could do. Within two months she was dead.

Rio was devastated. Not only was he a widower but he suddenly found himself the sole parent of three young children: Lorenz (now 10), Tate (8) and Tia (6).