I have long wondered how two people who appear to have everything—beauty, celebrity, wealth, good health and wonderful children—can still reach the point of divorce, only to spend years trading pointed remarks about one another.
Author Lars Anderson seems equally puzzled. His new biography takes an intensely detailed look at the collapse of the marriage between Tom Brady, the 49-year-old football superstar widely regarded as the GOAT, and Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen.
In Brady: An American Story and the Price of Greatness, Anderson describes the former NFL quarterback’s last attempt to preserve the relationship during what became his final season. He also writes that Brady was deeply hurt by the timing of Bündchen’s pregnancy with Joaquim Valente, whom she married in a private ceremony in 2025.
Brady and Bündchen ended their marriage in October 2022, following 13 years together. They share two children, Benjamin and Vivian, who are now 16 and 13.
The book’s most striking line comes from former coach Bruce Arians, who was reportedly stunned by Brady’s appearance around the time of the divorce: “He looked like a cancer patient with really good hair.”
That was the comment that made me feel especially sorry for a man who had lost 20 pounds along with, in his eyes, the world’s most beautiful woman.
According to the biography, the split began after Bündchen, who has an interest in astrology, supposedly “looked into the stars and told Tom, ‘We’re not compatible.’”
I find that explanation difficult to accept. Even a supermodel would understand that ending a marriage to the father of her children is a serious decision, not one made on the basis of a horoscope alone.
Brady and Bündchen divorced in October 2022 after 13 years of marriage and two children, Benjamin and Vivian, now 16 and 13
“He looked like a cancer patient with really good hair.” That was the remark that made me feel profoundly sorry for Brady
The prevailing view is that Bündchen became frustrated after repeatedly putting her own career aside while Brady continued playing, training and traveling well into his forties. He said he would retire, then changed his mind, returned to the game and kept wearing the protective padding.
Bündchen explained her position to ELLE at the time: “I’ve done my part, which is [to] be there for [Tom]. I moved to Boston, and I focused on creating a cocoon and a loving environment for my children to grow up in and to be there supporting him and his dreams. Seeing my children succeed and become the beautiful little humans that they are, seeing him succeed, and being fulfilled in his career—it makes me happy. At this point in my life, I feel like I’ve done a good job on that.”
But isn’t compromise supposed to be part of marriage? Sometimes it means moving for a partner, stepping back professionally and, perhaps inevitably, devoting yourself to raising the children you share.
Perhaps Bündchen eventually grew weary of managing the holistic household alone. “These incense sticks don’t light themselves, Tom!”
That leaves the familiar question: was Brady behaving like a spoiled child, or was Bündchen acting like a pampered diva? Some people online have described the divorce as karma because Brady had a son, Jack, now 18, with his former partner Bridget Moynahan before he left her for the supermodel. In Brady’s defense, he was already dating Bündchen when Moynahan told him she was two months pregnant.
I met Bündchen backstage in Paris on a couple of occasions, and she seemed lively, grounded and remarkably unaffected by her looks. She appeared eager to shed the runway clothes and make-up, change into skinny jeans and flats, and disappear into the night. Her first American Vogue cover came in 1999, when she was 18; the accompanying shoot featured her naked beneath the headline, “The return of the curve.”
Her rapid ascent initially seemed to challenge the heroin-chic ideal of the 1990s, ushering in the era of the supposedly “strong” woman. Yet that image proved more complicated. When I hugged Bündchen backstage at a Dior show a year after the Vogue cover, I wrote that embracing her felt like “holding a sparrow.” Her tiny waist and prominent breasts became the center of enormous attention.
Her agent accused me of having no right to criticize her. Yet the explosion in cosmetic procedures among young women over the following 25 years appeared to reinforce my argument that Bündchen’s image could be viewed as a questionable role model.
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Perhaps Bündchen eventually tired of preparing homemade granola alone: “These incense sticks don’t light themselves, Tom!”
Was Brady behaving like a child, or was Bündchen a spoiled diva? Many online commentators call the split karma because Brady had fathered a son, Jack, now 18, with former partner Bridget Moynahan
Author, Liz Jones
Gisele was soon under contract as a Victoria’s Secret Angel (eeewww!), joining a gang of girls to rival her own physique.
The picture painted of the Brady marriage has always been, until this new biography, one of the man who refused to slow down to be present for his family, while Gisele gave it all up, Princess Grace-styley, to be a Trad Wife.
While I’m sure she enjoyed playing mansion for a while, escaping the treadmill of constant travelling, posing naked in snow and so on, the accepted story is that she got fed up being ignored.
Perhaps Tom, like most athletes, is a simple soul or, to put it more rudely, boring (I can’t see how Gisele’s new husband, a jiu-jitsu instructor of all things, is much of an improvement).
Indeed, Tom was so blinkered about sport in college, so uninterested in dating his friends thought he was gay, according to Anderson’s book.
Gisele reminds me of Al Pacino’s disaffected wife in the movie Heat: She knew he was a dedicated, obsessive cop when she married him, so why bleat now?
Women are always complaining their husband doesn’t work hard enough, but when he does, we whine.
I’m reminded of the late, great Joan Rivers sketch about how much she hated Princess Diana: ‘”I’m not happy! I’m not happy!” She was tall, she was thin, she was gorgeous, she was rich, she had a husband who didn’t wanna sleep with her…’
Most women rejoice when their husband is always working. So, despite being a misandrist, I don’t entirely blame Tom for the split and feel this new book is, for the most part, a more balanced view of one of the most famous unconscious uncouplings of the modern era.
Divorcing the father of your children is not something to be undertaken lightly
Perhaps Tom, like most athletes, is a simple soul or, to put it more rudely, boring (I can’t see how Gisele’s new husband, a jiu-jitsu instructor of all things, is much of an improvement)
Gisele basked in pretty privilege doubtless all her life, is a perfectionist (did you see her jodhpurs in that Vogue short film about life on her Miami ranch? Not a hint of green slobber on them) and so I pity poor Tom, arriving home sweaty, bruised and battered, to discover, just as CK Dexter Haven did, that being married to Tracy Samantha Lord is damned hard work.
Perhaps, the moral of this whole sorry story is that it turns out Gisele too is a victim of the fashion and beauty industries: women have been brainwashed to never be satisfied; if we are, we stop shopping. We also have no patience, take no prisoners, refuse to compromise and believe nice things bring us happiness: not relationships, not family, not loyalty.
Has Gisele’s yearning to be back in the spotlight, the marrying down, all been worth it? No US Vogue cover since the divorce and she’s now, what, the global ambassador of Garnier Fructis? A bit of a comedown after wearing the game-changing Dior ‘Bar’ suit on the runway for the label’s 60th anniversary, held inside the Orangerie at Versailles.
Her gorgeous head has been turned: she’s no longer the teenager desperate to shed couture and pull on skinny jeans. She’s no longer the big cottage cheese of the fashion world. No shame in that. The only pity is she thought she needed more.