Tiki Barber Is Engaged To His Jumpoff Traci Lynn Johnson
Aug 31st, 2011 by Bilal Ali
www.Bossip.com
Ex-Giants star Tiki Barber is planning another comeback — to married life.
The retired Big Blue grid great proposed to his girlfriend, Traci Lynn Johnson, 24, over the weekend, several people told The Post last night.
The pretty, blond Johnson is the former NBC intern for whom Barber, 36, left his wife Ginny in 2009 when she was pregnant with their twins.
“They got engaged,” said Mark Lepselter, Barber’s agent and close friend, of Tiki and Traci. “[Tiki’s] very happy, and he’s moving forward with his life.”
But Barber — who also is in the midst of trying to return to playing in the National Football League after a five-year hiatus — still has to get free from his wife.His divorce from Ginny remains pending in Manhattan Supreme Court, where the couple have bitterly battled over money issues.
Barber declined comment, and Ginny Barber could not be reached for comment.
The Post first revealed last year how Barber, then a NBC’s “Today Show” correspondent, left his pregnant, longtime spouse for Johnson.
Ginny, who already had two young sons by the footballer, sued Barber soon after for divorce.
She then barred him from the hospital delivery room when she gave birth to their two baby girls in May 2010.
Tiki got more bad news later in 2010, when NBC declined to renew his contract.
Earlier this year, Barber announced that he would attempt a comeback to the NFL and began an arduous training regimen.
At the time, the Giants still held the rights to him under the two years remaining on his $8 million contract, which he walked away from in 2006. But the team was happy to let him out of that obligation because of lingering bad blood involving them and Barber, who had been publicly critical of quarterback Eli Manning and coach Tom Coughlin.
Barber was rumored to have been considered by several NFL teams but has had just one workout with a single team — the Miami Dolphins, who took a look at him and passed.
Still, “we remain very hopeful that something will happen,” Lepselter said. “He looks real good.”