Alex Rodriguez is easily one of the most famous professional athletes of the past 20 years. He was a Major-League superstar, a tabloid figure, a tragic figure, a punching bag. He won MVPs, dated celebrities, posed for magazine covers.
And yet compared to A-list pop culture figures, he’s practically a nobody.
A-Rod is dating Jennifer Lopez these days, and she, as an international pop-star, is a much bigger deal than he is. (For what it’s worth, J-Lo has 41.5 million Twitter followers, A-Rod has 789,000.) As Rodriguez told Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show on Thursday, he is sometimes mistaken for Lopez’s bodyguard.
“This is one of the most humbling experiences of my life. When I was with the Yankees and we won the world championship, and you wear the pinstripes you think you’re pretty cool. But then you hang out with Jennifer and they confuse me with the security guard all the time.
I promise you, we were at the Met Ball, and the paparazzi were screaming at me—not even in English—’get the hell out of the way, get out of the way, we want to take a picture.'”
Rodriguez has never minded being the center of attention, so you could imagine him being a bit wounded by Lopez being so much more famous than he is. On the other hand, he seems to sometimes enjoy playing Mr. Humble, so maybe this is a good thing.
Either way, it can’t hurt that A-Rod is getting his ego checked every time he goes outside with his girlfriend.
