Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen Announce Divorce – Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen announced their divorce on Friday, ending a 13-year marriage between two superstars who reached the pinnacles of football and fashion. Brady and Bündchen both issued statements on Instagram late Friday morning, stating that they had “amicably” reached their decision.
The announcement came in the middle of Brady’s 23rd NFL season, and just months after the seven-time Super Bowl champion ended his brief retirement. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback, who had long expressed a desire to spend more time with Bündchen and his three children, announced his retirement in February, only to reverse his decision 40 days later.
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“What more do you have to prove?” Bündchen told her husband on the sidelines after his last, record-shattering Super Bowl victory, Brady himself recounted shortly after the win. Despite Brady initially saying his retirement was a chance to focus his “time and energy on other things that require my attention”, part of his motivation to come back was what he has referred to as “unfinished business” with the Buccaneers.
Last season, the team failed to reach the Super Bowl in their attempt to repeat as champions. Bündchen told CBS This Morning in 2017 that she was worried about her husband after he suffered a concussion the year before. Brady’s former team, the New England Patriots, and his agent both declined to respond to her remarks at the time, and an NFL spokesperson said there were no records indicating he had suffered a head injury.
Brady later said he preferred to keep his medical history private. “I mean, we don’t talk about it,” Bündchen said during the interview. “But he does have concussions. I don’t really think it’s a healthy thing for anybody to go through.”
She recently claimed that the portrayal in media reports that she was desperate for her husband to retire was unfair. Bündchen and Brady met through a mutual friend and married twice in less than two years. They exchanged vows in early 2009 at a Catholic church in Santa Monica, California, in front of family and close friends, followed by an equally intimate second wedding nearly two months later at her home in Costa Rica.
Later that year, their son Benjamin was born, followed by a daughter, Vivian, in 2012. Brady also has a 15-year-old son from a previous relationship with actress Bridget Moynahan, Jack Moynahan. Bündchen, who was discovered by a modeling scout at the age of 13 in Brazil, rose to become one of the industry’s highest-paid models by the 2000s and became a tabloid fixture as a result of her relationship with Leonardo DiCaprio.
She walked the runways of top designers, appeared in campaigns for high street and high fashion brands alike, became a Victoria’s Secret angel, and appeared in small film roles, including The Devil Wears Prada. In 2015, she took a break from modeling, abandoning runway work and limiting herself to a few advertising campaigns and magazine covers per year. She made one notable exception, crossing a 400-foot runway in a glistening gown and a huge smile in 2016 at the Rio Olympics while fellow Brazilian Daniel Jobim performed The Girl from Ipanema.
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Since reducing her modeling commitments, she has devoted herself to environmental activism, particularly the conservation of the Amazon rainforest, as well as business ventures such as eco-friendly skincare and a lingerie line. She has also spoken out about mental health, revealing troubling panic attacks that led her to consider suicide and criticizing unrealistic beauty standards.
