Cynthia Scurtis: 5 Things To Know About A-Rod’s Ex-Wife Amidst His Engagement To J.Lo

Alex Rodriguez will soon walk down the aisle to wed Jennifer Lopez, but it won’t be the first time he’s been married. A-Rod’s ex, Cynthia Scurtis, recently spoke on J-Rod’s engagement, so here’s all the info on his first wife.

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“I’m happy for them. Other than that, I have no comment,” Cynthia Scurtis, 46, the former wife of Alex Rodriguez, 43, said when speaking for the first time on his engagement to Jennifer Lopez, 49. Cynthia, when giving such a terse comment to Radar Online, was reportedly visibly annoyed, and considering how her marriage to the New York Yankees slugger ended, it’s not that surprising. Before A-Rod and Jenny From The Block tie the knot, here is what one needs to know about the A-Rod’s first wife.

1. She comes from a “prominent Florida religious family.” Born in, as the NY Daily News put it, “the swanky Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami,” Cynthia is the granddaughter of one of Florida’s most prominent and influential Greek Orthodox priests, the Rev. Demosthenes Mekras. Cynthia was sent to Gulliver Prep School, the same institution where O.J. Simpson and former Gov. Jeb Bush sent their kids. She played volleyball and was a popular cheerleader.

2. Cynthia’s into fitness – and is incredibly smart. Cynthia got a degree in psychology from Ohio State. She also has a master’s degree from Fort Lauderdale’s Nova Southeastern University. After completing her schooling, she returned to her hometown to teach psychology at her high school. It was in Coconut Grove where she would meet her future husband.

3. She met Alex at a gym in 1996. She was on the Stairmaster at the Body and Soul Gym when A-Rod, then the All-Star shortstop for the Seattle Mariners, approached her. “He’s really into muscular women,” a source told the Daily News. “She kept saying, ‘No, no, no,’ when he asked her out. Eventually, she caved in.” Six years later, on her 30th birthday, Alex proposed. By then, he was playing for the Texas Rangers and living outside of Dallas. Though her family first objected to the relationship because she wasn’t dating a Greek, her grandfather married them at A-Rod’s Texas mansion in 2002.

4. Their marriage didn’t end well. Cynthia filed for divorce in 2008, after reports alleged that A-Rod was getting close and personal with a Las Vegas Stripper. The couple had two children together – Natasha Alexander, now 14, and Ella Alexander, now 10 – and the split was not pretty. “The marriage of the parties is irretrievably broken because of the husband’s extramarital affairs and other marital misconduct,” according to her petition for dissolution of marriage, filed in the family division of Miami-Dade County Circuit Court, according to ESPN. The couple finalized the divorce in Sept. 2008. Since then, she has moved on. She has a two-year-old daughter named Camilla and a new fiancé, Miami realtor and fitness entrepreneur Angel Oscar.

5. She’s reportedly not a fan of J.Lo. Cynthia’s younger brother, Constantine Scurtis, filed a civil lawsuit against A-Rod in 2014, accusing the slugger of fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, unjust enrichment and civil conspiracy related to a real estate company they started in 2003, according to the NY Daily News. According to a motion filed on April 30 in a Florida state court, Cynthia allegedly made “disparaging remarks” about J.Lo. Supposedly, A-Rod’s attorney allegedly “communicated” to Cynthia “that he had possession of communications in which (Cynthia) allegedly made disparaging remarks about Rodriguez’s current girlfriend, Jennifer Lopez.”