The website JustJared.com reported early this morning that New York Yankees icon Derek Jeter has split from girlfriend Minka Kelly, a beautiful brunette actress best known for her role on the television show Friday Night Lights. PopSugar quickly reported that Kelly's rep confirmed the split.
Despite Jeter's stature in the sports world and Kelly's starring turn on a beloved sports drama, the Yankees' captain and the starlet managed to keep their longstanding relationship relatively discreet longer than many of their peers seem to manage. In other words, they were never caught feeding one another popcorn at the Super Bowl.
Rumors were circulating as early as January 2010 that the pair were set to wed, but Kelly was still being coy about the pair tying the knot a year later when she spoke to GQ magazine.
"I promise you, I'm not getting married in the next month," Kelly told GQ.
There seemed to be no sign of an impending split when Kelly joined Jeter's family in a private suite at Yankee Stadium just a few weeks ago to watch him notch his 3,000th career hit, but the report at JustJared.com spread like wildfire on Twitter overnight, with reactions ranging from sad about the break-up to lustful after one of the newly-single stars.
A Yankees fan theorized that Jeter's batting average had something to do with it. Richard Deitsch of Sports Illustrated wondered if the New York tabloids had time to stop the presses for the late-breaking news and another tweeter blamed Hurricane Irene.
