Watch: Gisele Bündchen Makes Rare Comment About “Quieter Life” in Boston During Tom Brady Marriage
Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen didn’t just wake up one morning to find themselves in the end zone.
“That takes years to happen,” Bündchen told Vanity Fair in 2023 about the unraveling of her marriage to the seven-time Super Bowl winner, which many assumed occurred within a matter of months in the wake of his March 2022 decision to play at least one more season in the NFL.
After all, he infamously made that decision barely a month after announcing his retirement when he was only 44.
But while their past tangles over Brady’s single-minded devotion to his sport were well-documented—”She didn’t feel like I was doing my part for the family,” he admitted on The Howard Stern Show in 2020, “and she felt like I would play football all season and she would take care of the house”—Bündchen pushed back against the notion that she wasn’t supportive of his dreams.
Not least because living happily ever after with Brady and their kids Benjamin, 16, and Vivian, 13, plus his son Jack, 19, with ex Bridget Moynahan, had been her dream.
“You give a hundred percent of yourself,” she reflected, “and it’s heartbreaking when it doesn’t end up the way you hoped for, and worked for, but you can only do your part.”
The 46-year-old went on to welcome a son with partner Joaquim Valente in February 2025. “This year brought deep lessons and profound growth,” she wrote on Instagram Dec. 31. “Becoming a mother again reshaped everything—my time, my priorities, my heart.”
Simon Bruty/Anychance/Getty Images
As for Brady, who’s now a lead NFL analyst for Fox, he hasn’t said as much publicly about his divorce, but he did acknowledge that what turned out to be his final season as a player was “tough.”
“I had a lot of, you know, just a personal, family issue, and it was a challenge,” the 49-year-old, who played his final three seasons for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after spending 20 seasons with the New England Patriots, said on The Herd in January. “It just took a lot out of me in terms of, you know, my ability to continue to play.”
And according to Lars Anderson’s new book, Brady: An American Story and the Price of Greatness, out Sept. 29, Brady threw a Hail Mary when he sensed time was running out.
In the summer of 2022, he asked for an extended leave from training camp to take care of a personal matter, per Anderson, and only a few people on the Bucs knew he was going to the Bahamas with Bündchen in an attempt to work on their marriage. (Coach Todd Bowles cryptically told reporters that August that the star quarterback was “going to deal with some personal things.”)
Brady returned to camp 11 days later. Tight end coach Rick Christophel told Anderson, “You could tell that some very serious things were bothering him. He was always gracious to everyone, but his mental state was not good. He was constantly thinking of his family.”
E! News has reached out to reps for Brady and Bündchen for comment on the details in Anderson’s book.
Simon Bruty/Anychance/Getty Images
While Bündchen later told Vanity Fair that the idea that she left Brady because he wanted to play one more season was “the craziest thing” she’d ever heard, she had indicated that her needs weren’t being met.
“I have my concerns,” she told Elle in a story published Sept. 13, a month after Brady took his then-unexplained absence from training camp. Football “is a very violent sport, and I have my children and I would like him to be more present. I have definitely had those conversations with him over and over again.”
However, she noted, it was his decision to keep playing and “he needs to follow his joy, too.”
When Brady announced that he wasn’t retiring after all, he said, “I have realized my place is still on the field and not in the stands. That time will come. But it’s not now. I love my teammates, and I love my supportive family. Without them, none of this is possible.”
Yet Bündchen’s absence from Brady’s cheering section as the 2022-2023 NFL season got underway was duly noted, and they announced Oct. 28 that not only had they split up, but their divorce was finalized.
In respective statements posted to their Instagram Stories, they both expressed gratitude for the time they spent together and emphasized their commitment to co-parenting.
Karwai Tang/Getty Images
On the 2018 Facebook Watch docuseries Tom vs. Time, Brady compared the end of football season every year to a “crash landing,” going from spending 10 to 12 hours a day training, practicing and playing to not having anywhere pressing to be. But, as Bündchen held court in the clean-eating kitchen of their 14,000-square-foot mansion in Brookline, Mass., he noted that it was nice to be home before his children went to bed and when they woke up in the morning.
And Brady said on The Herd in January that, when he finally did retire in 2023, “I wanted to spend time with my kids. I felt like, ‘OK, now it’s time for me to be at all my kids’ games. They’ve been to enough of their dad’s games.'”
But he finished short of the goal line with Bündchen, who assured that whatever had been speculated about their breakup was only “one piece of a bigger puzzle.”
“Sometimes you grow together; sometimes you grow apart,” she told Vanity Fair. They wanted the same things when they met, but, “as time goes by, we realize that we just wanted different things, and now we have a choice to make. That doesn’t mean you don’t love the person.”
Read on for more details about Brady and Bündchen’s family:
Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images
Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images
Instagram / Bridget Moynahan
Tom Brady/Instagram
James Devaney/GC Images
Instagram / Gisele Bündchen
Instagram / Tom Brady
Instagram / Valente Brothers
But eventually, their friendship turned into something more.”This is the first time I am seeing someone that was a friend of mine first,” she told The New York Times in March 2024 without naming names. “It’s very different. It is very honest, and it’s very transparent.”However, she shot down any accusations she cheated on Tom during their marriage and noted, “That is a lie.”While Joaquim and Gisele have occasionally been spotted showing PDA on the beach, they keep most of their life together private. But they’re in it for good, reportedly tying the knot in a small wedding ceremony in Florida in December 2025.
Instagram / Gisele Bundchen
