Ahead of her main event duties against Amanda Lemos at UFC Vegas 52 in the strawweight division, we take a look at the partner of Jessica Andrade, her kids and more
This weekend’s UFC Fight Night features a strawweight clash between top-ranked fighters Amanda Lemos and Jessica Andrade. The battle-tested veteran has fought the biggest names in the UFC, including wins against formidable names like Rose Namajunas, Claudia Gadelha, and Angela hill.
The black belt in jiu-jitsu made her UFC debut back in 2013, and although she lost her fight, she went on to win three straight fights since then. She beat Rose Namajunas at UFC 237 to capture the strawweight gold, but lost the very next fight in her first title defense against Zhang Weili. She won her last fight against Cynthia Calvillo via TKO in the first round.
MMA wasn’t a priority for Andrade to begin with. In a written article with The Players Tribune, Jessica wrote the following
“In Umuarama, I grew up playing football, which to my family was also not a girl’s thing, to be honest. Playing football was my biggest passion. I wanted to be on TV, to be just like Marta. I even had a knack for it. I was offered to play for São Paulo, one of the biggest clubs in Brazil. But my mother wouldn’t let me go. She was afraid that someone would kidnap me, or that something else would happen. I’ve always respected her, so I ended up not taking the offer. I needed to find another path. But what path?”
But she always had fighting instincts inside her, and it proved vital when she had to use her combat gift to tackle a situation involving her brother and a drug dealer. “Ever since I was a child, I liked to play fight with my brother. One day at school, he was being threatened by a drug dealer — the most dangerous guy in the neighbourhood, actually. I joined their fight in order to protect my brother, and I just hit the drug dealer with kick after kick and landed a punch so hard to his face that he started bleeding.”
Outside the octagon, Andrade spends most of her time with her longtime girlfriend and now wife Fernanda Gomes. The pair have been openly gay for the longest time, and after her loss against Jonna Jedrezeczyk, Andrade proposed to her girlfriend in one of the most heartfelt moments inside the octagon.
The couple were in a long term relationship for a long time and finally united in marriage in 2019 at a ceremony in Las Vegas.
The couple had a nasty incident in 2019. They were robbed in Niteroi (a town in Brazil). Fernanda confirmed the news via her Facebook account with the following statement –
“Friends, our car was stolen, and they took our phones with it, we are out of reach for now, except for messenger. Anyone who can, please share this so we can find the car. We are safe at home,”
Jessica Andrade’s wife, Fernanda Gomes is a biologist. Gomes shares a quite similar love for Jiu-Jitsu. It is known that she practices the art along with her father and Andrade. Besides that she also enjoys skateboarding, and travelling and the pair spend a lot of time on beautiful beaches.
She has over 9k followers on Instagram. Her account is public. The pair have a baby together, however, no information has been released publicly.
Not much is known about Fernanda Gomes’ family.
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