George Foreman died on March 21, 2025, in a Houston hospital at age 76. He was a two-time world heavyweight champion, an Olympic gold medalist, the man behind the George Foreman Grill, and one of the most recognizable athletes in American history. He was married five times and had 12 children.
Andrea Skeete was his fourth wife.
They were together from 1982 to 1985. Three years. Short by any measure. But she is the mother of two of his children, one of whom became a professional boxer and died tragically young, the other of whom built a national fitness business. Andrea’s fingerprints are on both of those lives, even if her name rarely appears in the story.
She has spent four decades making sure of exactly that.
Who Is Andrea Skeete
Andrea Skeete was born in 1953. Details about her birthplace remain debated across sources, with some suggesting she was born in Jamaica before moving to the United States and others placing her birth in America directly. She is in her early seventies as of 2026.
What is clear is that she entered George Foreman’s orbit well before their marriage. She was working as his executive assistant and cook when they met in the late 1970s or early 1980s. That work context matters. She was not someone who met a famous boxer at an event and pursued a relationship with a celebrity. She was already part of his professional life, handling the practical demands of a world heavyweight champion’s daily operation.
That background established something real between them before the relationship became romantic.
George Foreman at the Time of Their Marriage
To understand what Andrea married into, you need to understand where George Foreman was in 1982.
Foreman had retired from boxing in 1977 after a loss to Jimmy Young in Puerto Rico. The defeat triggered a profound personal and spiritual crisis. By his own account, he experienced a vision in his dressing room after the fight that led to his conversion to Christianity. He became an ordained minister and stepped away from the sport entirely for a decade.
By 1982 he was not an active boxer. He was a former champion building a new life around faith and family in Houston. He was between his third and fourth marriages, having divorced Sharon Goodson the same year he married Andrea. He was already a father to children from previous relationships.
The man Andrea married was not the rampaging Big George who had knocked out Joe Frazier in two rounds or who had fought Muhammad Ali in the Rumble in the Jungle. He was a 33-year-old retired fighter trying to figure out what came next.
That version of George Foreman required a different kind of partnership. Less championship training, more practical domestic management. Andrea provided it.
The Marriage: 1982 to 1985
George and Andrea married on April 28, 1982. She was 29. He was 33.
Their marriage produced two children. Freeda Foreman was born on October 16, 1976, predating the marriage itself, which means Andrea had been with George and part of his family for several years before they formalized the relationship. George Foreman III, known as Monk, was born on January 23, 1983, during the marriage.
Three years after the wedding, they divorced on February 4, 1985. Neither George nor Andrea has publicly disclosed the specific reasons. What coincided with the divorce was George’s decision to return to boxing. He began his comeback in 1987, eventually winning the heavyweight championship again in 1994 at age 45, the oldest heavyweight champion in history. George married his fifth wife, Mary Joan Martelly, in 1985, the same year his marriage to Andrea ended.
One source mentions a paternity suit filed during the marriage, suggesting complications in the relationship. The details have never been publicly aired by either party.
Freeda Foreman: The Daughter Who Fought
Freeda Foreman grew up carrying one of the most famous names in boxing history. She chose to honor it directly.
She turned professional as a boxer in 2000 and compiled a record of five wins and one loss in a 17-month career. She had genuine ability, but George Foreman reportedly paid her to retire from the sport, unable to watch his daughter absorb punishment in the ring after a career spent doing exactly that himself. She stepped away from competing in 2001.
After boxing, Freeda worked as a promoter and became executive director of the George Foreman Youth and Community Center in Houston. She was using the family name and the family resources to develop young people in the same city where her father had grown up in poverty and found boxing as a way out.
In March 2019, Freeda Foreman died by suicide in Houston. She was 42 years old.
Andrea gave a deeply personal interview after Freeda’s death. She recalled a conversation she had with her daughter just weeks before she died. Freeda had asked her mother what the biggest joy of her life was. Andrea told her: the day you were put in my arms.
That quote sits in the public record as one of the clearest windows into who Andrea Skeete is as a person. A private woman, not known for public statements, suddenly sharing the most intimate thing a mother can say about a child she lost.
George Foreman III: Monk Builds His Own Career
George Foreman III, born during the marriage in 1983, took a different path from his sister.
He boxed professionally and went undefeated, compiling a 16-0 record with 15 knockouts. But his ambitions ran beyond the ring. He founded EverybodyFights, a luxury boxing gym chain built around the idea of making the discipline and training methods of boxing accessible to people who were not professional fighters. The business became a national brand with multiple locations across the United States.
George III represents the intersection of the family’s athletic legacy and entrepreneurial instinct. The same combination that made his father a world champion and a grill salesman. The business acumen came from somewhere. Growing up in a household where Andrea managed an executive assistant role and later moved into real estate suggests a mother who understood commerce and structure alongside sport.
Life After Foreman
After the divorce in 1985, Andrea built a life independent of the Foreman name. She entered real estate, which became her professional focus in the years that followed.
Some sources indicate she married again, to a man named Anthony W. Mapp, though details about that relationship have not been disclosed publicly. She has maintained the same approach to privacy that defined her years with Foreman: minimal public presence, no media cultivation, no leveraging of her connection to boxing history.
That consistency is worth noting. Many people connected to famous athletes use those connections to generate attention for themselves. Andrea has done the opposite for forty years. The most she has said publicly in that entire period was the brief interview about Freeda.
The mental discipline required to step away from the spotlight when the world is interested in you is not a passive quality. It requires active choice, repeatedly made.
George Foreman’s Death in 2025
George Foreman died on March 21, 2025, in a Houston hospital at the age of 76. He had been with his fifth wife, Mary Joan Martelly, for 40 years. His memorial service was held on April 14, 2025 at the Wortham Theater Center in Houston.
Andrea Skeete was not a public figure at his death. She did not give interviews about his passing. The coverage focused on Mary Joan Martelly, on the championship fights, on the Grill, on the sons named George.
But George Foreman III was out there representing the family at events and in media. He carries his father’s name as a title and Andrea’s values as a foundation. And Freeda’s absence at those moments of public remembrance was its own kind of presence, a reminder that the family’s story includes grief that runs deeper than any championship.
Quick Facts
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Full name | Andrea Skeete |
| Born | 1953 |
| Marriage to George Foreman | April 28, 1982 to February 4, 1985 |
| Children | Freeda Foreman (1976-2019), George Foreman III “Monk” (born 1983) |
| Career | Executive assistant/cook, later real estate |
| Second marriage | Anthony W. Mapp (details private) |
| George Foreman’s death | March 21, 2025, Houston, age 76 |
