Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen’s 2022 divorce stunned America. The legendary quarterback and the former highest-paid model in the world had appeared to be a real-life fairytale couple.
Now, following years of research and interviews with friends, eyewitnesses and former teammates, bestselling author Lars Anderson’s new book Brady: An American Story and the Price of Greatness explains how the celebrated marriage ultimately unraveled.
Tom Brady wanted to remain tied to the life he knew, chasing the extraordinary rush of competition that had driven him since adolescence.
At the same time, he was increasingly troubled by the thought that continuing to play was almost unfair. His career effectively kept him away from his wife and children for roughly half the year, leaving him feeling like an absent husband and father.
His mind pointed him toward one decision while his instincts pulled him toward another—like attempting to move in two opposite directions at once.
‘It’s not always about what I want,’ he said in January 2022. ‘It’s about what we want as a family. I’m going to spend a lot of time with them and work out what comes next.’
Brady believed that his wife, Victoria’s Secret model Gisele Bündchen, ‘deserved’ more of his attention as both a husband and a father.
His determination to keep playing football placed intense pressure on the marriage. Initially, Bündchen tried to steer him toward retirement with quiet encouragement.
In 2017, moments after Brady orchestrated the biggest comeback in Super Bowl history to claim his sixth title, Bündchen and the couple’s two children rushed onto the field to celebrate with him.
Yet the first thing Bündchen said to her husband of eight years was not about the dramatic victory. It was about what came next: Was this the perfect moment for him to retire?
Brady had no response. He embraced his wife and behaved as though the question had never been asked.
Lars Anderson’s new book details the previously untold story behind Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen’s shocking divorce
When Brady met Gisele, whose fortune was nearing $400 million and who had appeared on more magazine covers than anyone else, he said he expected to play in the NFL for only another decade
As Bündchen’s modeling career receded and her wish for Brady to spend more time at home intensified, he helped build a dynasty alongside Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots
Later that evening in Houston, while the Patriots celebrated their victory, Bündchen raised the subject again. Brady remained silent.
When she tried a third time, he finally replied. ‘Too bad, babe,’ he told her. ‘I’m having too much fun right now.’
Several weeks later, Brady, Bündchen and their children took a vacation with Jay Feely, Brady’s former teammate at Michigan.
Bündchen asked Feely to make the argument she had been unable to get through herself. She urged him to present retirement as Brady’s ultimate act of leadership—this time, for the sake of his family.
‘She was completely serious,’ Feely later recalled.
‘Play for as long as you want,’ he told Brady.
Brady winked at his buddy.
Gisele went for a more direct approach in 2018, days after Brady and the New England Patriots had suffered a gut-wrenching Super Bowl loss to the Philadelphia Eagles.
Gisele wrote her husband a letter – serious, handwritten. She explained that their marriage wasn’t working. She needed more of him, more of his time, more of his attention, more of his heart.
She needed him to be present when he was at home, not responding to text messages on his constantly buzzing cell phone or replaying a game in his mind.
She needed more help with the kids. She needed the chance to sleep in just a few days a week. She needed more time for her own career.
Gisele ran onto the field to celebrate with Brady after he had just completed the greatest comeback in NFL history, only to immediately question him on a potential retirement
Brady and Gisele have son Benjamin (left) and daughter Vivian (right). But she also helped raise Jack (center), the son Brady shares with actress Bridget Moynahan: pictured in 2021
‘People need to understand that Gisele was a bigger international star than Tom,’ said a former Brady teammate. ‘She was getting tired of living on Tom’s schedule and being somewhat in his shadow during football season. She has a lot of pride, too. And, I mean, how many times did you see Tom supporting her career? There clearly were imbalances there.’
The couple went to marriage counselling, but Brady eventually filed the heartfelt letter in a drawer.
He’d pull it out on contemplative nights and reread every word, wanting to be reminded that he needed to tend to his marriage with the same tenacity he tended to his job.
In early 2020, the family relocated from to Florida when Brady signed for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
‘Think about being married to Tom,’ said one of Brady’s friends, a former NFL player. ‘The guy gets up at the crack of dawn, thinks all day about a game that is foreign to his wife, comes home and is in bed each night by nine. He can’t really eat out or go out without causing a scene. Everything he puts in his mouth tastes like s***. The whole lifestyle had to be getting tiresome for Gisele.’
Worried that enrolling their young children at a new school would be ‘too much change,’ Gisele committed to homeschooling Benny and Vivian in Tampa. ‘We were only going to stay for a year,’ she said.
One year turned to two.
And so it was that, in January 2022, America’s most famous quarterback found himself weighing the case of Brady vs. Brady – the sportsman vs. the family man.
He deliberated for nine days. It was close to a hung jury; Brady leaned 55 percent one way, 45 percent the other.
But on February 1, he announced the verdict: At the age of 44 and after 22 years in professional football, his NFL career was over.
That decision lasted just 40 days.
On March 13, Brady announced he would return for a 23rd season, his sights set on an eighth Super Bowl win.
‘I’ve realized my place is still on the field and not in the stands. That time will come. But it’s not now,’ he said.
At first, Gisele made the right noises, expressing public support for her husband’s decision to play on.
‘I don’t think relationships just happen. It’s never the fairytale people want to believe it is,’ she said that summer.
‘When you love someone, you don’t put them in a jail and say, “You have to live this life.” You set them free to be who they are.’
But when Brady walked into One Buc Place in July for the start of training camp, the sight of him – gaunt and cadaverous – was that of a man worn thin, reduced to bone and sorrow.
Brady and Gisele looked smitten on vacation in 2022, just weeks before he announced his un-retirement
Gisele paid an emotional tribute to Brady after he announced his retirement for the first time. She also initially supported his decision to return publicly but things quickly turned sour
Nearly everyone in the building worried he was ill, maybe even battling a serious disease. His teammates estimated he’d lost close to 20 pounds, and the vibrancy of his spirit had dimmed like a candle running low on wax.
‘For Tom to lose that much weight, on his frame, it was a lot,’ said his former Buccaneers head coach Bruce Arians. ‘It was very clear that the reason for the weight loss was the stress from the personal issues he was dealing with.’
‘His cheekbones had freaking cheekbones,’ said another coach. ‘With all respect, he looked like a cancer patient with really good hair. He just seemed miserable, not even close to the Tom we all loved. He was so stressed.’
In truth, Gisele had been so upset at Brady’s U-turn that she had flown off to Costa Rica.
Brady wound up taking Benny and Vivian, then 12 and 9, to their first day of class at a new private school in Florida.
During practice on July 28, center Ryan Jensen, one of Brady’s closest friends and his biggest defender on the field, collided with another player.
Crashing to the ground, Jensen screamed ‘F***!’ and clutched his left knee. Practice stopped. Brady lifted off his helmet and ran to Jensen.
Kneeling by his side and knowing the meaning of that scream – torn ligaments, fractured bones – he watched as the medical staff tended to his friend. Getting visibly upset, Brady stood and walked away.
He wandered around the eerily quiet field, hands on his hips. ‘It was pretty clear he was asking himself, “Why the f*** did I come back?”‘ said one Buccaneers staffer.
‘I think that’s when he realized he’d made a horrible decision. He didn’t come back and risk adding more troubles to his marriage to get the s*** kicked out of him!’
In late August, for the first time in his career, Brady asked his head coach if he could take an extended leave from camp.
He said he’d come back; he just didn’t know when.
Things had got so bad that he and Gisele now required a serious discussion in a remote location.
There was a noticeable change in Brady when he walked into One Buc Place in the summer of 2022 for training camp
Brady had lost so much weight that his Buccaneers coaches and teammates thought he looked like a cancer patient
‘I’ve got to take care of some personal things,’ Brady told coach Clyde Christensen with a lifeless stare.
Christensen later speculated that Brady may have been experiencing a form of serious psychological shock.
Something had blindsided him – something very bad and something that had completely devitalized him.
Brady’s absence from camp was excused, but only a few at One Buc Place knew he was traveling to a private resort in the Bahamas to make one final, desperate attempt to keep his family together.
With just six months left in his football career, the bond he and Gisele had was flickering out like a match in a strong gust of wind, the fragile illusion of forever now fast fading.
‘Tom didn’t know what the heck was going on,’ said an assistant coach. ‘And we didn’t know if he was ever coming back.’
When he returned to Tampa after 11 days away, his spirit seemed more broken than before.
It was evident that a scarring incident had transpired.
The frantic, nearly two-week effort to rescue his marriage had failed. Those close to Brady feared the countdown to divorce was on.
But Brady remained utterly captivated by Gisele, still lost in the enchantment of her.
‘Tom was an empty shell of who he was when he got back,’ Christensen said. ‘There was no joy. Everything was hard work.’
‘Everything was going good between Tom and Gisele,’ one eyewitness close to Brady said. ‘Tom was FaceTiming with Gisele during the day between meetings, just checking in to see if she needed anything. These were normal conversations, and she seemed happy.
‘Then one day, Gisele, who is really into astrology, basically looked into the stars and told Tom, “We’re not compatible.” And just like that, she was done.
‘But what triggered that? Was it the years of feeling like she wasn’t his top priority? That he kept playing when she’d asked him to step away? Maybe.
‘Or was there a particular spiritual adviser telling her, “Hey, this relationship is bad for you. Get out of it now. Even the stars are telling you that.” One thing is certain: In no way, shape or form was this a normal marital breakdown.’
Brady and Gisele announced their divorce on October 28, 2022, after 13 years of marriage.
In February 2025, Gisele gave birth to her third child, her first with boyfriend Joaquim Valente, her former jiu-jitsu instructor.
According to one of Brady’s friends, he was absolutely ‘stung’ that she had become pregnant just two years after divorce.
In February 2025, Gisele gave birth to her third child, her first with boyfriend Joaquim Valente, her former jiu-jitsu instructor
According to one of Brady’s friends, he was absolutely ‘stung’ that she had become pregnant just two years after divorce
Just over a month after the birth, Brady shared a photo of himself on Instagram – his preferred form of mass (and often cryptic) communication.
In the color photograph, Brady’s right arm is extended and a ball has spiraled out of his hand. He is silhouetted by the sunset’s golden glow.
Underneath, Brady wrote: ‘True Love.’
To those who knew him well, there was no ambiguity. As one friend described it, that was ‘the softest middle finger.’
PART TWO COMING NEXT WEEK: The shocking sex incident that left Brady’s college teammates questioning everything…
Adapted from Brady: An American Story and the Price of Greatness by Lars Anderson. Copyright © and reprinted by permission of Celadon Books.
