Now a husband and father of four, the former swimming superstar’s life looks very different from the years when millions watched him dominate inside Olympic arenas.
And while fans still marvel at his almost unbelievable athletic résumé, many have become equally fascinated by the family he built after reaching the pinnacle of his sport.
Born on June 30, 1985, in Baltimore, Maryland, Phelps began swimming as a child and quickly displayed extraordinary potential.
What followed became Olympic history.
Across five Olympic Games, Phelps accumulated an astonishing 28 medals.
Twenty-three of them were gold.
Those numbers alone separate him from virtually every athlete who has competed on the Olympic stage.
Whenever discussions turn to the greatest Olympians in history, extraordinary names inevitably enter the conversation.
Usain Bolt transformed sprinting.
Nadia Comaneci changed gymnastics.
Carl Lewis became one of track and field’s defining figures.
But measured purely by Olympic medals, nobody has matched Phelps.
Even within swimming, where legends including Mark Spitz, Matt Biondi and Jenny Thompson built remarkable careers, Phelps’ medal haul remains in a category of its own.
His accomplishments turned him into a global celebrity as much as an athlete.
Yet there was another story unfolding behind the medals, world records and podium celebrations.
Phelps was also building a relationship with Nicole Johnson.
Their connection stretches back years, and the ESPY Awards hold particular meaning in their story because the event is where the pair first met.
Johnson had already established accomplishments of her own.
Before becoming widely known as Phelps’ partner, she competed in beauty pageants and modeling.
She was named Miss California USA in 2010 after previously competing in pageants during her younger years.
Johnson had been a runner-up in the Miss California National Teenager competition in 2004 and later reached the top 15 during an earlier attempt at Miss California USA in 2006.
Eventually, however, her relationship with Phelps would introduce her to an entirely different level of public attention.
The two did not have a perfectly straightforward romance.
Their relationship included time apart before they ultimately found their way back to each other and built a family together.
Over the years, photographs shared by Phelps have given fans glimpses into the couple’s life away from major sporting events.
Johnson regularly attracts compliments of her own.
Fans have described her as “pretty,” “cute” and “absolutely beautiful,” while others have praised the couple together.
But Phelps has made clear that what he values most about his wife goes far beyond appearance.
Johnson has been beside him through periods that were considerably darker than anything fans saw while he stood on an Olympic podium.
Phelps has spoken openly about experiencing depression, anxiety and difficult emotional periods during and after his competitive swimming career.
His willingness to discuss those struggles eventually became an important part of his public identity.
For years, people had seen the athlete.
They had seen the medals.
They had seen the celebrations.
They had watched him stand on podium after podium while the American national anthem played.
What they had not always seen was the person underneath all of it.
Phelps eventually began talking publicly about the emotional toll that could exist behind extraordinary athletic success.
And when discussing the people who helped him through those periods, Nicole’s name repeatedly surfaced.
“There’s no other person that would be able to support me like she has,” Phelps told TODAY.
Then he described the role she plays inside their family in just a few words.
“She’s the glue that holds all of us together.”
For someone whose life was once defined by individual achievement, that description says a great deal about how Phelps’ priorities have changed.
Johnson has also supported work connected to the causes that became important to her husband after his competitive career.
Since 2015, she has served as an ambassador for the Michael Phelps Foundation, an organization connected to water safety, healthy living and helping young people develop important life skills.
Their partnership eventually expanded into a growing family.
Phelps and Johnson are parents to four boys: Boomer, Beckett, Maverick and Nico.
Fatherhood has revealed a very different side of the man once known primarily for his relentless competitive intensity.
During his swimming career, Phelps’ days revolved around training.
His schedule was famously demanding.
Every fraction of a second mattered.
Everything was measured against the next race, the next record and the next Olympic Games.
Family life brought a different rhythm.
Instead of simply chasing medals, Phelps found himself raising children and navigating the ordinary responsibilities that come with being a husband and father.
His social media presence has increasingly reflected that transformation.
Alongside reminders of his extraordinary swimming career are photographs and moments involving Nicole and their sons.
For fans who remember the teenage swimmer who first appeared on the Olympic stage, seeing Phelps surrounded by four children makes the passage of time particularly striking.
The transformation has also given his legacy another dimension.
For years, Phelps was almost impossible to separate from his statistics.
Twenty-eight Olympic medals.
Twenty-three golds.
Dozens of major international victories.
World records.
Historic races.
Yet numbers reveal only one part of his life.
After stepping away from elite competition, Phelps increasingly used his enormous platform to discuss subjects that athletes of earlier generations often avoided publicly.
Mental health became one of them.
His openness challenged the assumption that extraordinary success automatically protects someone from depression, anxiety or emotional pain.
In that part of his journey, Johnson was not simply standing beside a famous athlete at glamorous events.
According to Phelps himself, she was helping hold their family together.
That distinction may explain why fans have become so interested in their marriage.
From the outside, Phelps’ life once appeared almost impossibly successful.
He had achieved what generations of athletes could only dream about.
But his comments about Nicole revealed that some of the most important victories in his life happened far away from a swimming pool.
Their story has unfolded alongside his transition from Olympic phenomenon to retired athlete, mental-health advocate, husband and father.
Johnson has undergone her own transformation as well.
The former pageant winner who became Miss California USA eventually became the mother of four boys and a longtime partner to one of the most recognizable athletes in modern history.
And through the enormous changes that came with Phelps’ fame, retirement and personal struggles, their relationship endured.
Fans may initially notice the glamorous photographs.
They may comment on Nicole’s appearance or on how striking the couple looks together.
But Phelps’ own words reveal what matters most to him.
When he describes Nicole, he does not primarily talk about beauty contests, photographs or public appearances.
He talks about support.
He talks about family.
And he calls her the person who holds everything together.
It is a striking admission from someone who spent much of his life appearing almost superhuman.
Phelps’ Olympic achievements remain extraordinary.
His 28 medals and 23 golds ensure that his name will remain embedded in sporting history regardless of what happens next.
There may never be another swimmer who reproduces what he accomplished across multiple Olympic Games.
But retirement has allowed fans to see something that medal tables never could.
Behind the record-breaking athlete is a husband who openly acknowledges how much he has depended on his wife, a father raising four sons, and a man who has learned that strength can mean something very different outside competition.
For Phelps, the Olympic medals tell the story of what he achieved in the water.
His life with Nicole and their four boys tells the story of what came afterward.
And judging by the way he speaks about his wife, one of the people he credits most for helping him navigate that second chapter has been standing beside him for years.