Online Reporter
The Man City boss, 55, who’s been with the club since 2016, is expected to speak about his marriage breakdown on A Beautiful Obsession, a four-part series dropping on Amazon Prime today.
In a sweary rant shown in the preview, following a 2-0 Champions League loss to Juventus, he told his team: “Guys – I want to confess something.
“I’m f***ing divorced from the most beautiful woman on your planet. It’s my wife – my ex-wife. I love her unbelievably. But we lost the passion.
“For many reasons, we lost the passion. I love her absolutely. She loves me, yeah, but we lost the passion. And it’s how you play football. You play because of something inside — but where is the passion?”
Pep split from Cristina Serra, 54, in December 2024. They had been married 10 years, but their romance spanned more than three decades.
They are parents to Maria and Marius, who are in their 20s, and Valentina, who is a teenager.
Their relationship began when an 18-year-old Pep went to a fashion store in Barcelona owned by Cristina’s family, to model some outfits by Spanish designer Antonio Miro.
Back then, Pep was playing for Barcelona’s B team, while she was an actress who had appeared on Spanish TV. Pep’s sister Francesca once recalled: “He was very handsome, a good student, always getting good marks. The teachers drooled over him, he was already seductive when he was little.”
Cristina gave up acting to concentrate on her clothing business and is now said to be worth more than £30million.
Meanwhile, Pep established himself as one of the best midfielders of his generation, winning multiple titles with Barcelona’s first team, before launching one of the most successful managerial careers of all time.
Pep always credited his wife with his great sense of fashion and for bringing up his children. She moved with him to Manchester when he joined City, with the couple taking up residence in a luxury block in Salford.
Cristina was so important to the Spaniard that he even refused to join any team without her say-so. In a rare personal interview in 2018, he said: “Only at home I feel safe.
“I mean safe in terms of not being observed. I close the door and I feel safe. My job is demanding a lot. Cristina is an incredible woman, not just an incredible mother.
“If we were talking about moving to New York, Munich and here, if she decides not to come, I won’t come. I will not be here, I cannot be alone in this kind of job without my family.”
But cracks started to show in 2019, when Cristina returned to Barcelona with their youngest child Valentina, while Pep stayed in Manchester.
She had been unable to settle in the North West and yearned to be close to the Catalan capital.
While they put on a united front on holidays and at Wimbledon, in private, their recent long-distance relationship was becoming increasingly unsustainable.
Their split was announced in January 2025 however Spanish property documents — obtained by The Sun — showed the couple were dividing their assets much earlier.
Pep became the sole owner of their £8.5million family home, in the Barcelona suburb of Pedralbes, on October 7, 2024. – Sun
