Tom Brady made ‘desperate’ 11-day attempt to save Gisele Bündchen marriage before divorce
Tom Brady made a last-ditch, 11-day attempt to save his crumbling marriage to Gisele Bündchen just months before they divorced, according to a new book.
The NFL legend was excused from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ 2022 training camp to jet off to a private resort in the Bahamas to meet with his then-wife as their 13-year marriage hung by a thread.
“I’ve got to take care of some personal things,” Brady, 49, told coach Clyde Christensen, according to the upcoming biography, “Brady: An American Story and the Price of Greatness,” via The Daily Mail.
Brady’s abrupt departure left even those around him unsure whether he would return.
“Tom didn’t know what the heck was going on,” an assistant coach recalled. “And we didn’t know if he was ever coming back.”
When Brady returned to Tampa 11 days later, Christensen said it was apparent the getaway had failed to repair the couple’s fractured relationship.
“Tom was an empty shell of who he was when he got back,” Christensen said. “There was no joy. Everything was hard work.”
Brady also appeared alarmingly thin during the tumultuous period, with Anderson reporting that some coaches and teammates privately remarked that he looked like a cancer patient.
The seven-time Super Bowl champion’s marriage had reportedly been strained for years as Bündchen, 46, pushed for him to step away from football and spend more time with their family.
After Brady led the New England Patriots to victory over the Atlanta Falcons in Super Bowl LI in 2017, Bündchen rushed onto the field and, according to Anderson, asked him, “Would now be the perfect time to retire?”
Later that day, Bundchen reportedly asked Brady again about hanging up his cleats, to which he purportedly responded, “Too bad, babe. I’m having too much fun right now.”
The following year, she once again asked Brady to retire after Brady’s team, the Patriots, lost the Super Bowl to the Philadelphia Eagles, by writing him an emotional letter.
“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,” Anderson writes. “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.”
Bündchen, one of the world’s most successful models, put her career on hold to raise their two kids, Benjamin, 16, and Vivian, 13, and helped raise Brady’s son, Jack, 19, from a previous relationship with Bridget Moynahan.
She finally pulled the plug on the marriage when, according to Anderson, she consulted an astrology book.
“One day, Gisele, who is really into astrology, basically looked into the stars and told Tom, ‘We’re not compatible,’” an insider close to Brady told Lars Anderson. “And just like that she was done.”
The couple announced their divorce on Oct. 28, 2022, after marrying in 2009, saying their priority was their kids.
“We have grown apart and while it is, of course, difficult to go through something like this, I feel blessed for the time we had together and only wish the best for Tom always,” the model wrote via Instagram at the time.
In December 2025, Bündchen remarried jujitsu instructor Joaquim Valente, and the couple now share a 1-year-old son.
As for Brady, he’s since been linked to model Irina Shayk and internet personality Alix Earle.
