Famous people
March 11, 2023 | 10:00 am
Welcome to the support group for Tiger Woods exes.
Woods’ ex-lover, Rachel Uchitel, has extended an invitation to the latest former golfer, Erica Herman, 37, to be a guest on her upcoming podcast, “Miss Understood,” which launches Tuesday on Apple and Spotify.
“We can both sit in silence for 30 minutes thanks to Tiger Woods,” Uchitel told The Post exclusively.
After all, both signed nondisclosure agreements with the golf giant — Uchitel in 2009 and Herman in 2017.
That document is now a legal bone of contention for Herman, who sparked a firestorm yesterday when her lawyers sought to dismiss hers, citing a law that allows such NDAs to be voided if there is evidence of sexual assault or harassment.
“I think everyone wants to know who she is, right? Listen, I think it’s very interesting what’s going on. I’m curious why he’s doing this publicly. I have a lot of questions for her,” Uchitel said, adding that Herman is “going up against Goliath.”
Not that anyone knew Woods and Herman’s nearly six-year relationship was even over until documents revealed a nasty battle had been brewing since October 2022.
Herman, who met the notorious private athlete while working at his restaurant in Jupiter, Florida, alleged in her lawsuit that her ex-lover kicked her out of his home using “deception.”
She claimed that people working for him convinced her “to pack a suitcase for a short vacation and when she arrived at the airport, she was told she was locked out of her residence, in violation of her oral lease and in violation of Florida law . of the law,” the lawsuit states.
Herman also claimed, according to the lawsuit, that staff removed her personal belongings and took $40,000 in cash that belonged to her.
Said Curt Sampson, author of two books on Tiger Woods: “He probably said [people who work for him], ‘Hey, I have this problem, will you take care of it?’ So superficial and heartless to me.”
(Woods’ longtime agent, Mark Steinberg, did not return messages seeking comment.)
Sampson, who wrote 2019’s “Roaring Back: The Fall and Rise of Tiger Woods,” said Herman’s allegations reflect the coldness Woods embodied when he broke up with his high school sweetheart.
In 1994, a golf prodigy, he enrolled at Stanford University and ended his three-year romance with Dina Gravell-Parr by letter.
“He said: ‘My parents are very worried that you are bothering me and I have to listen to them. We have to stop,’ Gravell-Parr told The Post in 2009. “I felt like I got punched in the stomach.”
Said Sampson: “I think Tiger is quite a flawed person in terms of relationships. It could just be a consequence of him being so damn good and so dedicated to his game.”
Herman’s shock filing again felt like deja-vu for the golf great, whose colorful and stormy love life has often overshadowed his award-winning career over the past 14 years.
Woods’ love history includes a scandalous divorce, widespread infidelity, a fling with a fellow A-list athlete, and a drive-by mess with waitress Perkins, to name just a few memorable moments.
He also allegedly used NDAs with at least three women.
While this latest battle with Herman isn’t planting a solid foundation for friendship, Woods has managed to remain friendly with several exes, even calling ex-wife Elin Nordegren “one of my best friends.” Which is a far cry from how they ended things.
When Woods met the 21-year-old Swedish bombshell at the 2001 British Open, he was golf’s golden boy — a generational talent who transformed the game. She worked as a nanny in the family of Swedish golfer Jesper Parnevik, who met them.
At first, Nordegren was reluctant to get into a relationship with the athlete, according to her friend Sandra Sobieraj Westfall.
“She had her opinion about celebrities and it wasn’t high. And she’s very shy, so the idea of joining that world wasn’t appealing to her,” Sobieraj Westfall said in HBO’s 2021 documentary “Tiger.”
“And when he asked her out, I think she turned him down at first,” Westfall recalled. “Gradually, she became convinced that she should give him a chance, so they went out.”
They got married in 2004 and had two children, Charlie and Sam.
But on Thanksgiving Day 2009, their life was permanently interrupted after Nordegren discovered that Woods was cheating on her with former Las Vegas hostess Uchitel.
Woods was at the height of his career when a furious Nordegren allegedly chased him out of their home with his own golf club and used it to smash the windows of his car, which he then crashed into a tree.
It was a huge fall from grace for the golfer, who had made millions of dollars from golf and had millions more in sponsorships. He had just won the Masters in Australia and that same year was photographed meeting former President Barack Obama at the White House.
That revelation of cheating was just the thread that unraveled his seemingly perfect reputation as a family man.
Other ladies also came forward, and it was reported that Woods had slept with 120 women during his marriage.
One of them was Mindy Lawton, Perkins’ waitress who allegedly had an affair with Woods in his SUV.
The golfer and Nordegren divorced in 2010 — Nordegren is believed to have received a $100 million settlement — and he entered rehab. Since then, he publicly regrets hurting her.
2015 he told Time Magazine that his relationship with Nordegren is stronger than ever.
“When it comes down to it, right down to it, it’s just having a more open, honest relationship with my ex-wife when we were married,” Woods said.
But his shame lingered. In his 2017 book, Unprecedented, The Masters and Me, he admitted: “My regret will last a lifetime.”
Woods appeared to be on his way to rebuilding his career and reputation when he began dating gold medalist skier Lindsey Vonn around 2012.
They were peers and equals: two world-class athletes who helped define their sports, but also surpassed them.
In 2013, they made their first red carpet appearance together at the Met Gala, and a source told Page Six that Nordegren “really likes Lindsey and thinks she’s a really good influence on Tiger.”
But the power couple split in 2015, with both blaming busy training schedules that took them to different sides of the world.
Two years later, after Woods was arrested for DUI, Vonn told Extra that she reached out to him after his DUI arrest and that they remained friendly — a sentiment she doubled down on in 2018.
“I loved him and we are still friends,” Vonn told Sports Illustrated.
But she indicated that there are more nuances in their separation: “Sometimes I wish he would listen to me a little more, but he is very stubborn and likes to go his own way.”
In 2015, Woods switched to stylist Kristin Smith.
Their two-year relationship reportedly broke up after Smith suspected the golfer was cheating on her. TMZ reported that she signed an NDA and was trying to get it overturned — but, in return, Woods allegedly threatened to release unflattering photos of her.
Sampson suggested that Woods’ shrewd coldness may not be limited to women.
“Maybe it’s a question of how he sees everyone, every other person — not just women,” Sampson said. “Tiger was told from the cradle: ‘You are your mission’… Everything and everyone else is a distraction or non-vital.”
After Smith, Woods quickly moved on to Herman, and the two appeared together at the Presidents Cup in September 2017. To outsiders, the native Floridian appeared to be a core force for Woods.
As the pair walked, he made a storybook comeback – winning the 2019 Masters.
They were regularly photographed with his children, and she remained a low-key presence on the tour, perhaps because she had signed an NDA.
“There are people who get involved with celebrities… They sign NDAs up front — that’s what Erica did. She signed that,” Teacher told the Daily Mail.
She added that her own NDA was created after she witnessed an incident and agreed “not to talk about the conduct or the incident in order to participate in a cover-up, so to speak. . . . I signed an NDA to cover up misconduct.”
If Herman cannot publicly participate in the new Uchitel podcast, the host will be happy to advise her privately.
“If he wants to discuss this scenario in private, my door is always open. Knowing that publicly, it’s really, really hard to deal with this.”
As for Woods’ string of failed relationships, Uchitel said, “A tiger doesn’t change its stripes.”
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