Outside football
Personal life
Ronaldo during a 2005 meeting at the Brazilian Ministry of Education
During 1997, Ronaldo met the Brazilian model and actress Susana Werner on the set of Brazilian telenovela Malhação when they acted together in three episodes.[204][205] Although they never married, they began a long-term relationship and lived together in Milan until the beginning of 1999.[206]
In April 1999, Ronaldo married Brazilian footballer Milene Domingues, at the time pregnant with the couple's first son, Ronald, who was born in Milan, on 6 April 2000.[207] The marriage lasted four years. In 2005, Ronaldo became engaged to Brazilian model and MTV VJ Daniela Cicarelli, who became pregnant but suffered a miscarriage; the relationship lasted only three months after their luxurious wedding at the Château de Chantilly. The ceremony reportedly cost £700,000 (€896,000).[208]
A practicing Catholic, Ronaldo donated a signed football to Pope Francis. Accompanied with a signed Brazil jersey from Pelé, it is located in one of the Vatican Museums.
Despite his fame – a 2003 poll by Nike listed him the world's most famous sportsperson (and third most famous person overall) – Ronaldo is protective of his privacy, including with teammates, stating in an interview with The Telegraph, "each [player] has his own private life, and no one thinks about anyone else's private life. Or talks about it."[58] By 2003 he was fluent in Portuguese, Spanish and Italian, and had a good understanding of English.[58]
In a 2005 interview with Folha de S.Paulo, Ronaldo revealed that, somewhat unexpectedly, he identified racially as white,[209] generating a wider conversation about the complex role of race in Brazil.[210][211][212] Ronaldo's father, Nelio Nazario, stated, "He knows full well that he's black. Actually, at the time, I thought it was some philosophy, something to that effect. Because he knows he's black."[211] According to a study led by geneticist Sérgio Pena of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, most Brazilians often have a misconception about their roots. "The maternal ancestry of the Brazilian white was one-third African, one third Amerindian, and one third European. An individual who considers himself white may be genomically more African than an individual who considers himself to be brown or black."[211]
In April 2008, Ronaldo was involved in a scandal involving three travesti prostitutes whom he met in a nightclub in Rio de Janeiro.[213] Ronaldo claimed that upon discovering that they were legally male, he offered them $600 to leave.[214] One of the three attempted to blackmail Ronaldo, while the other two admitted the allegations were false.[215] Ronaldo's engagement to Maria Beatriz Antony was immediately halted,[216] but resumed shortly after. Maria Beatriz Antony gave birth to their first daughter, named Maria Sophia, in Rio de Janeiro, on 24 December 2008. In April 2009, the family moved to a new penthouse in São Paulo.[217] On 6 April 2010, Maria Beatriz Antony gave birth to their second daughter. The girl, born in São Paulo, was named Maria Alice. Coincidentally, Maria Alice was born exactly 10 years after her older brother Ronald.[218]
"In the dressing room, I was sat between [Paolo] Maldini and Ronaldo, who asked me if I wanted to be part of his clan, showing me a copy of Playboy, or if wanted to be part of Kaká's clan, who had a few church things in the dressing room."
—Alexandre Pato on meeting Ronaldo at A.C. Milan in 2007.[219]
In December 2010, Ronaldo and his family moved to a new mansion in São Paulo.[220] Also in December, Ronaldo took a paternity test and was confirmed to be the father of a boy named Alexander, born in April 2005. The boy was born after a brief relationship between Ronaldo and Michele Umezu, a Brazilian waitress who Ronaldo first met in Tokyo in 2002.[221][222] After the confirmation of his fourth child, Ronaldo stated on 6 December 2010 that he had had a vasectomy, feeling that having four children was enough.[223]
In a 2011 interview with the BBC, former Real Madrid teammate Steve McManaman spoke about Ronaldo's personality. "He could go in a restaurant, and I could go in with him, and you're not just there with close friends. He invites everybody. You'd be at a table with him and it'd be a judge sitting opposite talking to a politician with someone off the street listening in. So he just had this amazing aura, where everyone wanted to join him. Sometimes there'd be 20 to 30 people sitting at meal times with him. He was a wonderful person. Everybody would second that, no matter what club he played for."[224]
Ronaldo was the co-owner of A1 Team Brazil, along with former F1 driver Emerson Fittipaldi.[225] Ronaldo co-owns the sports marketing company 9INE, with his friend, mixed martial artist Anderson Silva, one of his clients.[226][227] A keen poker player, in April 2013 Ronaldo became a member of PokerStars SportStar, and in 2014 he played a charity poker tournament against tennis star Rafael Nadal.[228] On 11 December 2014, Ronaldo became a minority owner of the Fort Lauderdale Strikers of the North American Soccer League.[229][230] In 2015, Ronaldo opened eight new branches of his youth football school – the Ronaldo Academy – in China, the U.S. and Brazil, with 100 expected to be opened worldwide by 2020.[231][232] In 2017, Ronaldo's son, Ronald, was selected for the junior football team representing Brazil in the 2017 Maccabiah Games.[233] The Maccabiah is described as "the Jewish Olympics"; Ronald is not Jewish, but some participating countries have more relaxed rules about eligibility and Ronald is a member of a Jewish football club.[233]
Media
Ronaldo being interviewed by beIN Sports in Doha, Qatar, December 2014
Ronaldo appeared in The Simpsons season 18 episode "Marge Gamer" broadcast in April 2007.[234] Simon Crerar of The Times listed Ronaldo's performance as one of the thirty-three funniest cameos in the history of the show.[235] Ronaldo made a cameo appearance in each film of the Goal! film trilogy, Goal! (2005), Goal II: Living the Dream (2007) and Goal III: Taking on the World (2009).[236] Archive footage of Ronaldo features in the music video "We Are One (Ole Ola)", the official song of the 2014 World Cup by Pitbull and Jennifer Lopez.[237]
Ronaldo has appeared in various commercials, from Snickers chocolate bar to Pirelli tyres.[238][239] Ronaldo's usual goal celebration of both arms outstretched – especially from his early career – was the basis for Pirelli's 1998 commercial where he replaced the figure of Christ from the Christ the Redeemer statue that towers over his home city of Rio de Janeiro while in an Inter Milan strip.[240] It was controversial with the Catholic Church.[239] In 2017 Ronaldo was added as an icon to the Ultimate Team in EA Sports' FIFA video game FIFA 18, receiving a 95 rating along with Brazilian compatriot Pelé, Argentine playmaker Diego Maradona, former Russian goalkeeper Lev Yashin and former French star Thierry Henry.[241] Ronaldo also appears as the cover athlete on the Icon edition of the game.[242][243]
Nike sponsorship
"Ronaldo is the most global of all athletes today, bar none."
—Joaquin Hidalgo, director of Nike's Brazilian marketing unit, 1998.[7]
Ronaldo has been sponsored by sportswear company Nike since the early part of his career. In 1996, Nike signed Ronaldo to a 10-year contract and to a lifetime endorsement deal worth over $180 million.[244] He is closely associated with the original Nike Mercurial R9 that was designed for him for the 1998 FIFA World Cup.[245][246] To celebrate 15 years of the boot, Nike created a Mercurial Vapor IX inspired by the 1998 design, with Phil McCartney, VP of Football Footwear for Nike, stating; "Ronaldo's impact on the game 15 years ago was immense, and in the run up to 2014, we wanted to celebrate that boot and the man himself. We thought a modern construction of his 1998 boot would be a great commemoration of that moment."[245] In 2018, Ronaldo's R9 Mercurial boots inspired the Nike Mercurial Superfly VI boots commissioned for Kylian Mbappé.[247] Unveiled in 2000, a bronze statue of Ronaldo is located next to Ronaldo Field at Nike headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon.[248]
Ronaldo has appeared in a series of Nike commercials. He starred in the 1996 Nike commercial titled "Good vs Evil" in a gladiatorial game set in a Roman amphitheatre. Appearing alongside football players from around the world, including Paolo Maldini, Eric Cantona, Luís Figo, Patrick Kluivert and Jorge Campos, they defend "the beautiful game" against a team of demonic warriors, destroying evil by winning the match.[249] In 1998, he featured in a Nike commercial set in an airport with a number of stars from the Brazil national team, including Romário and Roberto Carlos.[250] In the run-up to the 2002 World Cup in Korea and Japan, he starred in Nike's "Secret Tournament" commercial (branded "Scopion KO") directed by Terry Gilliam, appearing alongside football players such as Thierry Henry, Fabio Cannavaro, Francesco Totti, Ronaldinho and Hidetoshi Nakata, with former player Eric Cantona as the tournament "referee".[251][252] In the run-up to the 2014 World Cup, Ronaldo starred as a mentor in Nike's Risk Everything animated commercial with a host of current players in the Nike stable.[253]