Tony Parker opens up on marriage breakup with Eva Longoria: 'The exposure, I could not control'

Tony Parker has broken his silence about his 2011 divorce from Eva Longoria, blaming the suffocating glare of public exposure for the split. The four-time NBA champion told French TV show *Conversation Secrete* that the relentless online scrutiny became impossible to ignore during his marriage to the *Desperate Housewives* star.

Parker and Longoria met in 2004 in the San Antonio Spurs’ locker room at AT&T Center. She was seven years older and a die-hard Spurs fan; he was 23. Their connection was instant-Longoria called it “lust at first sight.” After a three-year marriage, the relationship crumbled. Longoria filed for divorce in California in 2010, while Parker filed separately in Texas. By 2011, they were legally apart.

Parker admitted the divorce hit him hard. “It’s not easy to leave a relationship,” he said. “When I get involved in something, I want to do it well.” He singled out media scrutiny as the marriage’s undoing. “The exposure, I could not control,” Parker explained. “This is the world we live in today-everything is on the Internet and social networks. Hollywood is another world, on another level.”

Longoria, meanwhile, called the split devastating. She told *Entertainment Tonight* in 2016 that she had to rebuild her life after years of watching Parker play. “I needed to find new patterns,” she said. Both have since moved on-Longoria to a 2016 marriage with Jose “Pepe” Baston, and Parker to a 2014 marriage to journalist Axelle Francine (divorced in 2020).

Fifteen years after their divorce, Longoria and Parker remain on good terms. In 2021, she posted a photo of Parker visiting the set of her show *Searching for France*, tagging him: “Look who came to visit... the one and only TP!” Parker has since dated French tennis star Alizé Cornet from 2021 to 2024.

Basketball still runs deep in Parker’s veins. In November 2025, he took over France’s U17 national team as head coach. He’ll lead the squad at the U17 World Cup in Turkey next year-a fresh chapter after years focused on family and media ventures.