Driving solo. NASCAR power couple Danica Patrick and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. have split after five years of dating, Us Weekly confirms.
Patrick, 35, began dating Stenhouse Jr., 30, after she ended her seven-year marriage with Paul Hospenthal. Patrick announced her breakup with Hospenthal, who is 17 years her senior, in November 2012 and their divorce was finalized in April 2013.
Patrick and Stenhouse Jr. have been very open with their relationship, attending public events together and often racing against one another for the past five years. Fans speculated that they were on the rocks when Stenhouse Jr. attended the NASCAR Cup Series awards ceremony on November 30 solo.
In a recent EPIX documentary titled Danica, Patrick opened up about her relationship with Stenhouse Jr. and even expressed her desire to get married and have kids.
“The relationship has really evolved into this really comfortable space where we’re … just really happy,” Patrick said. “It’s really straightforward and simple. And we don’t argue.”
“I have always had people say, ‘You’ll make a great mom someday,’” she continued. “And there’d be days a long, long time ago where I would be thinking in my head, ‘I don’t want to.’ ‘I don’t want kids.’ … It’s definitely more of a thought now – and being with Ricky, that is something he has always wanted. If we were going to have a relationship, that had to be something that I wanted. … Ricky’s well aware that I’m not having a family unless we’re married in any capacity.”
Patrick also revealed she had her eggs frozen “about a year and a half ago.”
“I was like, ‘Look, I’m gonna take control of my life here, and I don’t know where it’s going, and I’m not married, and I don’t know what the plan is, and I don’t know how long I’m gonna race, but I can only have 33-year-old eggs today,” the Pretty Intense author.
