Sports
Column: Shohei Ohtani's marriage announcement felt strange, but not if you know Japanese culture
Before Shohei Ohtani became Japan’s most popular athlete, that designation belonged to figure skater Yuzuru Hanyu.
Like Ohtani, Hanyu is 29.
Like Ohtani, Hanyu was born and raised in the Tohoku region, the northern part of Japan’s mainland.
Last year, the retired Hanyu announced on social media that he was married. Three months later, he returned to the same platform with another announcement.
He was divorced.
The two-time Olympic gold medalist said his family was harassed and became the unwanted subjects of media inquiries and reports. The identity of his wife, which Hanyu had kept secret, was divulged by a weekly tabloid magazine.
“When I thought about my future,” Hanyu wrote in Japanese, “I wanted my spouse to be happy, to have limitless happiness, so I made the decision to divorce.”
Hanyu’s story helps make sense of the bizarre manner in which Ohtani revealed his own nuptials this week.
Announcing a marriage on Instagram and holding a news conference on the subject but refusing to share the spouse’s name might strike Americans as peculiar. However, by the standards of Japanese culture — especially Japanese celebrity culture — nothing about this was abnormal.
To begin with, a person’s work and personal lives are more clearly delineated in Japan than in the United States. Romantic partners are rarely invited to work-related social functions, for example. Plus-ones aren’t a standard feature of wedding invitations.
Athletes typically keep their relationships private until they are married, which is why news of their unions often feel as if they come out of nowhere. Ohtani’s marriage was described by the Japanese media as a “shock wedding,” even though Ohtani said he got engaged last year.
Some Japanese baseball players married well-known sportscasters, including Ichiro Suzuki, Yusei Kikuchi and Kenta Maeda. Yu Darvish married a world champion Greco-Roman wrestler. Their wives already had public profiles before they were married; they continued to maintain them after. But in cases in which a player married an ippanjin — or civilian — the spouses remained anonymous. Hideki Matsui was one of the most popular Japanese players of all-time, and not much is known about his ippanjin wife to this day.
Japanese figure skater Yuzuru Hanyu poses with his gold medal during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
(David J. Phillip / Associated Press)
Ohtani said he wed a “normal” Japanese woman, so the expectation is that she will attempt to stay in the shadows.
The marriage was announced in a message Ohtani posted in Japanese on his Instagram account. In the post’s comments section, another message was posted, this one in English. The contents of the two messages were similar but not the same.
In the Japanese one, Ohtani said he would speak to reporters the next day and asked journalists to refrain from contacting his or his wife’s families. Ultimately, this was what Ohtani wanted to communicate. In exchange for sharing some details about his relationship, he was asking for privacy.
Ohtani indirectly repeated his request when he addressed the media at the Dodgers spring training complex. Asked why he made the announcement, he said jokingly in Japanese, “If I didn’t (and you found out), you’d make a fuss.” The implication was that because he was addressing the situation, the Japanese media shouldn’t make a fuss.
If Ohtani was any other player, the media would likely oblige him. But Ohtani isn’t any other player. There is no American equivalent to him. He has become to Japan what Diego Maradona was to Argentina or what Julio César Chávez was to Mexico, an athlete who projects the virtues of his culture to the world. Japanese parents want their boys to grow up to be like him. Women dreamed of marrying him. (There were reports of women skipping work because they were devastated to learn he was taken.)
Ohtani isn’t just famous. He’s famous in a country in which the spotlight on celebrities is particularly intense. Japan has fewer television stations and fewer entertainment options than the United States. When an athlete or entertainer becomes well known, they become unavoidable. Virtually everyone knows who they are.
The dynamic has resulted in Ohtani’s marriage being treated as if it’s a royal wedding, with Japanese television stations interrupting on-air programs to relay the news. There will be an appetite for information about Ohtani’s relationship, particularly about the identity of his wife, and the country’s notoriously aggressive tabloid magazines are certain to do everything in their power to satisfy that hunger.
Last year, Ohtani conducted an interview as part of an advertising campaign in which he described his vision for his home life.
“Including marriage in children — how do I say this? — I’d like to live in peace,” Ohtani said. “I think having a peaceful soul is better than anything. I’d like my private life to be like that.”
Hanyu was deprived of such an experience.
Hanyu’s cautionary tale should make the Japanese public sympathetic to Ohtani’s request for privacy, but that alone won’t ensure it. Ohtani had to know this, which is why additional measures were taken. The way he announced his marriage might not have made sense to American audiences, but they did to anyone familiar with his culture.
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Miami Heat star Bam Adebayo made NBA history on Tuesday night.
Adebayo scored 83 points, all while setting league marks for free throws made and attempted in a game for the Miami Heat in a 150-129 win over the Washington Wizards. It is the second-highest scoring game for a player ever, only to Wilt Chamberlain’s famed 100-point game.
“An absolutely surreal night,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra told reporters after the game.
Adebayo started with a 31-point first quarter. He was up to 43 at halftime, 62 by the end of the third quarter. And then came the fourth, when the milestones kept falling despite facing double-, triple- and what once appeared to be a quadruple-team from a Wizards defense that kept sending him to the foul line.
He finished 20 of 43 from the field, 36 of 43 from the foul line, 7 for 22 from 3-point range.
After the game, he was seen in tears while he hugged his mother, Marilyn Blount, before leaving the floor after the game.
“Welp won’t have the highest career high in the house anymore,” Adebayo’s girlfriend, four-time WNBA MVP A’ja Wilson, wrote on social media, “but at least it gives me something to go after.”
MAGIC’S ANTHONY BLACK MAKES INCREDIBLE DUNK OVER FOUR DEFENDERS IN HISTORIC NBA GAME
Bam Adebayo #13 of the Miami Heat celebrates during the fourth quarter of the game against the Washington Wizards at Kaseya Center on March 10, 2026, in Miami, Florida. (Megan Briggs/Getty Images)
The NBA’s previous best this season was 56, by Nikola Jokic for Denver against Minnesota on Christmas night. The last player to have 62 points through three quarters: one of Adebayo’s basketball heroes, Kobe Bryant, who had exactly that many through three quarters for the Los Angeles Lakers against Dallas on Dec. 20, 2005.
He wound up passing Bryant for single-game scoring as well. Bryant’s career-best was 81 — a game that was the second-best on the NBA scoring list for two decades.
Adebayo scored 31 points in the opening quarter against the Wizards, breaking the Heat record for points in any quarter — and tying the team record for points in a first half before the second quarter even started.
He finished the first half with 43 points, a team record for any half and two points better than his previous career high — for a full game, that is — of 41, set Jan. 23, 2021, against Brooklyn.
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Adebayo’s season high entering Tuesday was 32. He matched that with a free throw with 5:53 left in the second quarter, breaking the Heat first-half scoring record.
Adebayo’s 43-point first half was the NBA’s second-best in at least the last 30 seasons — going back to the start of the digital play-by-play era that began in the 1996-97 season.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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BOSTON — Charlie McAvoy scored 39 seconds into overtime and Jeremy Swayman stopped 14 shots on Tuesday night to earn the Boston Bruins their 13th straight victory at home, 2-1 over the Kings.
Mason Lohrei scored midway through the third period to break a scoreless tie. But the Kings tied it five minutes later when Drew Doughty’s shot from the blue line deflected off the heel of Bruins forward Elias Lindholm and into the net.
It was the seventh straight time the teams had gone to overtime in Boston.
In the overtime, Mark Kastelic blocked a shot in the defensive zone and made a long pass to David Pastrnak, who waited for McAvoy to come into the zone. The Bruins’ defenseman and U.S. Olympian, who went to the locker room at the end of the second period after taking a puck off his mouth, skated in on Darcy Kuemper and went to his backhand for the winner.
Kuemper stopped 21 shots for the Kings, who entered the night one point out of the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference. The victory kept Boston in possession of the East’s second wild-card spot.
Swayman tied his career high with his 25th win of the season. The Bruins haven’t lost at the TD Garden since before Christmas.
After the game, Kings forward and future Hall of Famer Anze Kopitar stayed on the ice to shake hands with the Bruins after what is expected to be his last game in Boston.
Sports
Jon Jones requests UFC release after Dana White says legend was ‘never’ considered him for White House card
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Mixed martial arts legend Jon Jones ended his retirement from UFC simply because he wanted a spot on the “Freedom 250” fight card at the White House in June.
But, when UFC CEO Dana White announced the card during UFC 326 this past weekend, Jones wasn’t among the fighters. As a result, he has requested a release from his UFC contract.
White was candid when asked about Jones following the UFC 326 card.
Jon Jones of the United States of America reacts after his TKO victory against Stipe Miocic of the United States of America in the UFC heavyweight championship fight during the UFC 309 event at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 16, 2024 in New York City. ((Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images))
“Never, ever, ever, which I told you guys a hundred thousands times, was Jon Jones ever even remotely in my mind to fight at the White House,” White explained, per CBS Sports. “Some guy with Meta Glasses filmed him talking about his hips – that his hips are so bad. And I don’t know if you guys saw that flag football game where he can barely run. Jon Jones retired because of his hips. He’s got arthritis in his hips. Apparently, doctors say he should have a hip replacement.”
White added that “the Jon Jones thing is bulls—,” saying that he texted the fighter’s lawyer saying he would never be on the White House card despite Jones saying he was in negotiations for it.
UFC ANNOUNCES CARD FOR WHITE HOUSE EVENT
The Meta Glasses incident White is referring to came from a viral video, where Jones, unaware he was being filmed, discussed issues with his hips to a fan.
On Monday, Jones composed a thorough response to White’s comments about him and the White House Card. He previously posted and deleted social media explanations, but Monday’s appeared to be his final statement on the matter.
UFC President Dana White speaks after UFC Fight Night at Toyota Center on Feb. 21, 2026. (Troy Taormina/Imagn Images)
“Yes, I have arthritis in my hip and it’s painful, but that doesn’t mean I can’t fight,” Jones, who retired a heavyweight champion in 2025, said. “So let me get this straight, if I had accepted the lowball offer, suddenly my hip would be fine and I’d be on the White House card? That doesn’t make sense. I even received stem cell treatment last week to get ready for the White House card, and training camp was scheduled to start today. I was preparing to be ready.
“I understand business deals fall through sometimes, but going out publicly and saying things that aren’t true isn’t right. After everything I’ve given to the UFC, the years, the title defenses, the fights, hearing that I’m ‘done’ is disappointing. Especially when as recently as Friday UFC was calling me trying to get me on that White House card for a much lower number.”
Jones finished his statement by saying he “respectfully” asks to be released from his UFC contract.
Jon Jones enters the ring before facing Stipe Miocic in the UFC heavyweight championship fight during the UFC 309 event at Madison Square Garden on November 16, 2024 in New York City, New York. (Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC)
“No more spins, no more games. Thank you to the real fans who know what’s up,” he wrote.
The UFC did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Fox News Digital.
Jones is considered one of the best UFC fighters of all time, owning a 28-1-1 record, which includes his last bout with Stipe Miocic, knocking him out to take the heavyweight title belt. He is also a two-time light heavyweight champion.
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