Tyreek Hill vows to ‘be the man my grandparents raised me to be’

Tyreek Hill has opened up his newfound responsibilities away from football after getting married during his Miami Dolphins bye week to his longtime fiancée Keeta Vaccaro.

The pair got engaged in 2021 but tied the knot recently at a ceremony in Texas and the Dolphins star says that it represents his sense of maturity off the field.

‘As far as like drinking and as far as like women, as far as like anything, I feel like I’m at a stage in my career now where I’ve got to be more mature with anything I do outside of football,’ Hill said to the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

‘Being a father, being a son, being a husband now. I got to stand in that role of being the man that my grandparents raised me to be. I’m loving it.’

After a week off, with his focus returning to the NFL, Hill was asked about how it feels to finally be a married man.

‘It was about time, man. Feel me?’ Hill joked, in regard to their lengthy engagement.

‘So, something that we wanted to do over the bye week, and we did it, went through with it. I was like, ‘Babe, we’ve been engaged for too long, like, are you ready to tie the knot? ‘It feels good, man. 

‘I feel like everything that’s been happening to me, man, it’s been for good reason. I’ve been locked in in a different way. Discipline with just my whole entire life.’

The Dolphins lost their last game, which was held in Germany, to the Kansas City Chiefs – Hill’s old team and the current Super Bowl champions.

It leaves them on a 6-3 record going into Sunday’s game against Jacksonville Jaguars in Miami.   

Vaccaro, an influencer, is the sister of former New Orleans Saints first round pick Kenny Vaccaro, who played in the NFL for seven seasons. 

The Dolphins traded for Hill, 29, from the Chiefs in March 2022 and made him the highest-paid receiver in NFL history with a $120million contract extension that included $72.2m in guarantees. 

His contract eclipsed Davante Adams’s deal with the Las Vegas Raiders, which is worth an average of $28.5m per season and briefly stood as the largest wide receiver contract in NFL history.

Hill remains a divisive figure among NFL fans after admittedly beating and strangling his pregnant girlfriend Crystal Espinal while they attended Oklahoma State in 2014. He pleaded guilty to domestic assault and battery by strangulation in 2015, and was sentenced to three years probation. 

Later he transferred to Alabama State and was taken by the Chiefs in the fifth round of the 2016 NFL Draft.

Espinal gave birth to their son in 2015 and the couple reportedly got engaged in 2018. 

However, they are now estranged after he was investigated in 2019 over an incident in which their boy suffered a broken arm at their home.

It was revealed that Overland Park (Kansas) police responded on March 5 to investigate a report of child abuse or neglect. Hill’s name was listed on that report.

Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe released a statement on April 24, explaining that he believed a crime had occurred, but there was not enough evidence to charge anyone.

The next day, local station KCTV released secretly recorded audio from an airport in Dubai in which a man, believed to be Hill, threatened a woman, believed to be Espinal, as she accused him of hurting their child.

After being told the boy ‘is terrified’ of him, an enraged Hill responded: ‘You need to be terrified of me, too, b****.’

Howe immediately re-opened the investigation as Hill was suspended indefinitely by the Chiefs.

The re-opened investigation was unceremoniously closed again weeks later as Hill remained barred from the team during voluntary summer workouts and the Chiefs’ mandatory minicamp.

Hill’s suspension was lifted in July of 2019, and while he continued to deny hurting his son, he did express regret about threatening Espinal, who was pregnant at the time.

‘I mean, I wish I could get into all of that, but I’m just here to man up to what I did,’ Hill said, referring to a secret audio tape that was released by local CBS affiliate KCTV.

‘On the audio, my bad language. I’m going to man up to that. I don’t want nobody talking to my little sister, my daughter that I have now, my mom like that. It’s very disrespectful. My mom got onto me. She thumped me on the ear saying, ‘C’mon, grow up from that.’ So, never again. I’m growing up as a human being.’

The NFL ultimately decided that it would not punish Hill, and the Chiefs immediately announced that his team-issued suspension was lifted and he would be reporting to training camp.

Earlier this year, Hill was under investigation for assault after slapping a man at a Miami Beach marina.

Hill settled with him and said afterwards: ‘I just can’t make bonehead mistakes like that.’