NFL quarterback Tom Brady and his wife Gisele Bündchen have apparently hit a rough patch in recent months, since the seven-time Super Bowl winner changed his mind about retiring from football. The Tampa Bay Buc called it quits after 22 seasons back in February, only to double back on that decision in March. This reportedly led to a huge fight that caused the model to move out, and apparently Bündchen has now retained a divorce attorney, with the QB looking into his own legal representation. As things appear dire for the couple, who have been married since 2009, sources say their troubles started long before Brady’s retirement flip-flop.
Rumors arose about possible marital strife a few months ago, when Tom Brady took an unexpected leave of absence from the Buccaneers during the preseason. Speculation only grew when Gisele Bündchen and their kids failed to appear at his season-opener, with the former Victoria’s Secret Angel acknowledging the game merely with a supportive tweet for Brady and his team. However, according to a source for People, the ups and downs within their marriage have been ongoing for a decade or so. According to the outlet:
[The problems] are 10 years old. This has been going on forever. This is nothing new to either of them.
While the issues may not be new, they seem to be more noticeable and widespread now, given Tom Brady’s family’s continued absence from his five games so far this season, and the talk of divorce attorneys. Brady had said in January on his Let’s Go! podcast (via US Weekly) that his wife didn’t like to see him take hits on the football field, and he got candid with Howard Stern (via E! News) in 2020 about arguments the two had over his contributions to the family. The quarterback said then:
So two years ago, as it related to your football for me, I had to make a big transition in my life to say, I can't do all the things that I wanted to do for football like I used to. I gotta take care of things in my family because my family- the situation wasn't great. She wasn't satisfied with our marriage. So I needed to make a change in that. Her point was, 'Well, yeah, of course this works for you. It all works for you. But it doesn't work for me.'
If that issue has been ongoing since 2018 (or before), one could see why Tom Brady’s decision to unretire would be all the more upsetting for Gisele Bündchen. Not only did it further delay spending person time with his family, but it also thwarted a TV deal that would make him an exorbitant amount of money.
The couple have been publicly adoring of each other on social media over the years, but they’ve also been open about the harder parts of marriage. Tom Brady got real about raising children, saying the hardest part was that he and his wife came from such different backgrounds.
Gisele Bündchen also allegedly threatened divorce back in 2015, as things reportedly became very tense between them during the quarterback’s Deflategate scandal. The model also wrote in her memoir Lessons: My Path to a Meaningful Life about being “not the nicest partner” after their children were born, as she took on most of the new baby responsibilities while he was busy with football.
Perhaps if they’ve been able to fight through their issues before, it’s a sign that Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen might be able to do it again. But only time will tell.
