Tony Parker, Brett Favre, and Gossip

It can't be easy being a professional athlete or a famous actor. Even the smallest details of your marriage, as in who you are texting, sexting become universal gossip. No judge has pounded the gavel, no jury delivered the verdict, consumers of gossip have no idea if the accusations are true, other than spouses leave husbands and the "victims" don't let go of their stories.

Eva Longoria has sent NBA star Tony Parker walking papers, and Jenn Sterger reported Brett Favre to NFL security, lawsuits pending. Journalists, and certainly the blogging community feast on celebrity gossip, and professional athletes are celebrities.

No news, but we expect movie and television stars to

marry and divorce more often,

to live a little on the wild side.

They entertain us acting the part.

We don't need it from our sports heroes. Some of us certainly don't, and our children, especially, need their heroes to bigger than this.

Yesterday's news is that television star, Eva Longoria is leaving San Antonio Spurs guard, Tony Parker. Eva found hundreds of text messages from Erin Barry. Erin is married to Tony's friend and teammate, Brent Barry. The dynamics, how this will affect the future of the team, how teamwork survives that, will be interesting to follow.

Eva, not so ironically, is a Desperate Housewife. This season, her friend, the sexy yet cold Renee, (Vanessa Williams), Lynette's (Felicity Huffman) college friend, has moved to Wisteria lane. Renee has decided to divorce Doug, a professional ball player who has cheated on her one time too many.

Eva Longoria's divorce is likely not life imitating art. We suspect which came first.

The second sexting scandal involves Brett Favre, the Vikings quarterback, in the professional sports hot seat for sending Jenn Sterger, online columnist and television personality, illicit pictures back in 2008. Jenn's television show, Daily Line, has since been canceled, ostensibly due to poor ratings.

Ms. Sterger shared her evidence against Mr. Favre with the New York Jets security chief. Why the security chief? Sexual harassment is a crime, of course. Sending unwanted nude photos, sexting with a cell phone, can be harassment. It makes some people uncomfortable. In this case, the photos were sold by a third party and purchased by Deadspin; Deadspin published them on the Internet.

See, that's the problem. You send an innocent picture, hoping to be romantic, and it is sold, over and over again. We're just making that leap here, that the photos will be sold over and over again. No need, they're online. And worse, you are accused of sexual harassment to boot.

The sexts are the bloody glove, according to Deadspin, meaning irrefutable evidence. Ms. Sterger is still exploring legal remedies.

It's likely that being accused of sexual harassment isn't fun, might even keep Mr. Favre awake at night, perhaps interfere with his game. We hope that the legal remedy against him somehow makes him take back what he did, apologize for upsetting Ms. Sterger-- and for setting a poor example to our country's sports fans. Sexting, just so you should know, is a violation of the NFL's personal-conduct policy. The NFL is not to blame.

We're waiting to see what Tony Parker does to save his marriage, if it is salvageable, which according to the Desperate Housewives script, is unlikely (at least not so far, there's time in the 2010-11 season). One thing's certain, however. Eva Longoria is anything but desperate.

Linda Freedman, PhD, LCSW, LMFT