Brian Ortega is finally speaking candidly about his past relationship with Tracy Cortez, and he’s not holding anything back.
During a recent appearance on Love & War With Dominick Cruz, Brian Ortega reflected on the highs and lows of the relationship, admitting it started with promise but quickly turned into something he knew wouldn’t last.
“Not to sound bad, but I think she got lucky at the right time in my life,” Ortega said. “I had just left a lot of things behind—coaches, relationships—and I was starting fresh. Then I meet her, and I’m like, ‘Alright, we can build something from scratch.’ People were calling us a power couple, and I went along with it.”
“And then shortly into that, I was like, ‘Damn, I messed up,’” he added.
Despite realizing early that things weren’t right, Brian Ortega said ego kept him in the relationship longer than he should have stayed.
“I already knew four months in it wasn’t going to work,” Ortega said. “But I had already made big changes in my life, and I didn’t want people laughing at me. So I stayed and dealt with all the craziness.”
The former title challenger revealed that the situation eventually began to affect not just his personal life, but his career as well, including his fight against Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 266.
“I was never at peace,” Ortega said. “Training camps were horrible. The Volkanovski fight? Horrible. There was arguing, nonsense at three or four in the morning. It just wasn’t a healthy place to be.”
Ortega also shared that his family had serious concerns from the beginning and warned him about what was coming.
“My mom told me, ‘You’ll never be at peace with her,’” Ortega said. “At first, I thought she was just being negative. But as time went on, I realized she was right. I was never at peace.”
Eventually, Brian Ortega made the decision to walk away, even though it wasn’t easy.
“I finally had enough,” he said. “I told her, ‘You’ve got to go.’ I even gave myself a Christmas deadline. It just wasn’t for me anymore.”
Since the breakup, Cortez has been linked to Alex Pereira, although that relationship reportedly ended quickly. Ortega suggested that others may now be seeing what he experienced firsthand.
“I think now people are starting to realize,” Ortega said. “They put her on a pedestal, and then when they really see who she is, it’s like, ‘Alright, never mind.’”
While both fighters continue to focus on their careers, Brian Ortega’s revelations offer a rare, personal look into a relationship that once appeared solid from the outside but told a very different story behind closed doors.
