Bruno Cerella played basketball in Italy for almost twenty years and became known as a reliable and good defensive wing player who never quite made the news like his flashier teammates did. His personal life off the court, on the other hand, has gotten more attention than most people would expect from a player who mostly came off the bench.
Émilie Nef Naf is the name that comes up most often when people talk about Bruno Cerella’s past relationships. She is a French TV personality who is well-known in France for her roles on reality shows like Secret Story and Les Anges. Around 2017 and 2018, photos of the two of them in different places in Europe made them more well-known. It’s important to note that Nef Naf is often called Bruno Cerella’s ex-wife online, but their relationship seems to have been more like a dating relationship than a marriage. They broke up, and the French celebrity media talked about it. This is because Nef Naf was already well-known in France.
It seems that when athletes date famous people, the relationship always ends up being the story, no matter how private the athlete tries to be. He always looked more at ease when he had a basketball in his hands than when a camera was pointed at him. At the time, reports said that he didn’t like Nef Naf’s return to reality TV while they were dating, which may have been one of the reasons they ended their relationship. When two people with very different public roles fight, it happens all the time, and there’s no need to make it more important than it is.
For a short time, his name was also linked to Argentine media personality Belen Rodriguez, but Cerella himself denied the rumors, saying that the two had talked but not confirmed anything serious. That part quickly ended.
What is known for sure and has been made public is that Cerella later found a real partner. He began dating Athina Oikonomakou in 2024. She was a famous Greek actress and businesswoman born in Skala, Laconia, who had built a career in Greek TV, theater, and her own fashion and jewelry businesses. On May 16, 2026, they got married in a religious ceremony in Athens. On June 27, 2026, they got married in a civil ceremony on the island of Paros. People in Greece paid a lot of attention to the wedding because Oikonomakou is a well-known media figure there.
Cerella, on the other hand, had already stopped playing by that time. He quit playing professional football in May 2024, after Treviglio was eliminated from the playoffs for Italy’s second division. It was the end of a 19-year career in which he had only played for Italian clubs. He won three Italian championships, three Italian Cups, one Italian Supercup, and a FIBA Europe Cup. His career may not have seemed impressive in terms of individual numbers, but it was a real testament to his consistency and dedication to a single league.
That someone who spent almost twenty years quietly defending, rotating, and staying ready might have found some peace and happiness in his personal life as well is perhaps fitting. The early parts, like the public relationship with a French reality star and the tabloid rumors, don’t seem important when compared to where things ended up.
A funny thing about how people search for and talk about Cerella’s story is that they often use the phrase “ex wife” when they mean “ex girlfriend,” and this is important in Cerella’s case. The public record shows that he was married to Oikonomakou for the first and only time. What happened before was real in its own way, but calling it a marriage is pushing it too far.
Bruno Cerella’s name was never the loudest one in a room. That much stayed the same during his basketball career and, it looks like, in his personal life too.
