WHY GISELE GAVE TOM A Second Chance
On the heels of his record seventh Super Bowl win, Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen are happier than ever after almost losing it all
The moment was almost as exciting as the game itself. Seconds after winning a record seventh Super Bowl — leading the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to a 31–9 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs on Feb. 7 — quarterback Tom Brady searched out his wife, Gisele Bündchen, and their children and shared an emotional group hug on the field at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla. Then, as world looked on, Tom pulled Gisele into a passionate kiss.
But that magical moment almost didn’t happen. In April, just days after Tom, Gisele and their kids moved to Tampa following his long career with the New England Patriots, he made a bombshell confession on shock jock Howard Stern’s SiriusXM radio show: Though he was publicly winning football games, privately, his marriage was imploding. He’d spent the last few years working hard to earn back his supermodel spouse’s trust and devotion after Gisele wrote him a letter telling him she was miserable. “She didn’t feel like I was doing my part for the family,” confessed Tom, 43, adding that Gisele, 40, said he was more focused on his career than her and their children, Benjamin, 11, and Vivian, 8, and Tom’s eldest son, Jack, 13, with ex Bridget Moynahan, 49. “I had to check myself,” he explained. “She’s like, ‘I have goals and dreams, too.’ ” With their union deeply damaged — “Gisele was days away from filing for divorce,” says an insider — Tom “knew he could lose everything and began making drastic changes.” They went to therapy, he revealed, and he started pulling his weight. “After a lot of difficult conversations and Tom agreeing to some rules,” says the insider, “they saved their marriage.”
RISKING IT ALL
He might be the greatest of all time as far as football is concerned, but he was far from the GOAT in his marriage. “She felt like I would play football all season and she would take care of the house. And all of a sudden, when that season ended, I’d be like, ‘Great, let me get into all my other business activities, let me get into my football training,’ and she’s sitting there going, ‘Well, when are you gonna do things for the house? When are you gonna take the kids to school and do that?’” Tom admitted, adding, “The situation wasn’t great. She wasn’t satisfied with our marriage.”
This was a turning point for Tom. “I needed to make a change,” he said, confessing his dark secret to the world. “Because you can get caught up in your life where you think a relationship’s great because it works for you, and the point of a relationship [is] it has to work for both.”
Gisele might rub some fans the wrong way with her cracks about Tom’s teammates and obnoxious motherhood comments about pain-free birth and the ease of post-pregnancy weight loss, but she’s been a rock