Rúben Dias denies cheating claims after split with Maya Jama
Rúben Dias publicly denied cheating claims after his split with Maya Jama, saying the rumours had reached his 85-year-old grandfather.
Rúben Dias drew a line under days of speculation by denying that he cheated on Maya Jama, saying the rumours had become so widespread that even his 85-year-old grandfather had asked him about them. In a public Instagram statement on 29 May 2026, the Manchester City defender said, "I didn’t cheat, nor did I ever have the intention or temptation to."
The denial followed reports that Dias and Jama ended an 18-month relationship in late May 2026, with some outlets saying the pair had separated about three weeks before the news became public. Coverage placed the start of the romance in different moments, with some reports saying they first met at the MTV Europe Music Awards in Manchester in November 2024, then began dating in early 2025 and made the relationship public in May 2025. Other accounts said the couple were first publicly seen together at a Baller League match in London in April 2025.
What pushed the story from breakup gossip into a wider public controversy was the online churn around Dias’s social-media activity. Tabloid claims about following and unfollowing women online fed talk of "toe-dipping" and direct messages, though one insider account said there was no suggestion Dias had directly messaged anyone or crossed a physical line. Reports also said both Dias and Jama deleted photographs of each other from Instagram after the split, adding to the sense that a private breakup had been dragged into a highly visible public trial.
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Dias framed his response as a defence of personal boundaries, saying his relationship with Jama had been built on mutual respect and that the reasons for the split should remain private. That position landed in a moment when both figures were already under career pressure: Jama was preparing for a demanding filming schedule that included Love Island and Celebrity Traitors, while Dias was focusing on the 2026 World Cup with Portugal. Jama had not publicly responded to Dias’s denial.
The episode underlined how quickly celebrity relationships can become part of a social-media rumour economy, where likes, follows and deletes are treated as evidence and private grief is consumed as public content. Dias, a Portugal international who joined Manchester City from Benfica in 2020 for around £65 million, has won multiple Premier League titles and a Champions League medal. Jama, one of Britain’s best-known presenters, has long been a central figure in mainstream entertainment. In this case, both were forced back onto a basic question of control: where public interest ends and private life begins.
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