Emma Rhys-Jones Biography

Emma Rhys-Jones came into limelight after she was spotted beside her partner, Gareth Bale, when he signed the £85million transfer from Tottenham Hotspur to Real Madrid in September 2013, which made him the most expensive footballer in the world. Soon after, she made news headlines with pictures of her doing the rounds of tabloids. However, she has kept a low profile on the internet and appeared on Bale’s social media feeds only occasionally. In the subsequent interviews, her friends, relatives and acquaintances asserted that she is unlikely to change under the limelight. She is not interested in the celebrity lifestyle around night clubs like most wives and girlfriends of sports stars (her grandmother, Grace Rhys-Jones, insisted that she is not a WAG, but a well rounded young woman with fiery Italian roots). Interestingly, his famous love heart celebration that he performs after scoring a goal, is dedicated to her.

Emma Rhys-Jones was born on July 29, 1991 and was raised in Llanishen, a district in north Cardiff, just a couple miles from the former council house where her future partner Bale grew up. She is the second eldest of her parents’ five children, and has an older sister Charlotte, a younger sister Katie, and younger twin brothers Robert and John. Her older sister Charlotte is the partner of Wales and British Lion rugby star Taulupe Faletau, and has a son, Israel, with him.

She first met Gareth Bale while both of them were attending Whitchurch High School in the early 2000s. They started dating soon after, and she has been beside him ever since, cheering him on the field during his matches. Since 2011, she had been living with Gareth at his luxury detached home in Chigwell, Essex, but returned to her hometown for the birth of their first daughter. She now lives in Madrid with her fiancé and their two daughters, both of whom were born before they were engaged. Their first child, Alba Violet, was born on October 21, 2012 at the University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff. On March 22, 2016, the couple welcomed their second daughter, Nava Valentina, who was also born in Cardiff. Bale announced his engagement to Emma on July 17, 2016, a day after his 27th birthday. They are reportedly planning to tie the knot in 2018.

Emma Rhys-Jones’s father, Martin Rhys-Jones, who was the mastermind behind a multi-million pound shares scam, was convicted of fraud and served five years behind the bars in Spain and the United States. Emma and Gareth delayed the wedding a few times in the hope that her father could be there on the big day. According to ‘Sun’, they earlier considered holding the ceremony in New York so that her father could attend their marriage. However, after they learned that he could be released early depending on good behavior, they postponed the ceremony in 2017, and decided to host it later in Wales.

In September 2017, her father was released from jail. Two days after his release, her father, who had never met his granddaughters before, set up a secret meeting with her daughter and granddaughters in an undisclosed location in Cardiff. Meeting her father after six long years, Emma went through a very emotional moment that left her in tears. Gareth was absent from this secretive affair; however, her father has met him before, as they have been dating for over a decade.

In September 2016, her elderly grandparents were forced out of their house after thugs threw stones through the windows, following which they also set their car ablaze. Apparently a bag full of drugs, cash and watches worth £1million was behind all these, for which her aunt was arrested by police the following month. The incident forced the couple to step up security in the fear that the drug gang involved in the incident might seek to mete out their own justice.