Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen’s 13-Year Marriage Offers a Powerful Lesson About Love, Ambition and Sacrifice (Getty Images)
The couple announced their divorce on October 28, 2022, closing a 13-year marriage. It came only months after Brady retired in February 2022 and then reversed that decision 40 days later.
Bündchen had said openly that she worried about the toll football was taking on him and their family. Tom Brady retired with seven Super Bowl rings, but his marriage to Gisele Bündchen ended before he left the game for good. He was beginning his 23rd season. Brady’s titles are a league record, and the divorce shows what it cost to keep adding to it.
Brady stepped away in February 2022, and by mid-March he announced he was coming back. In August he left Buccaneers training camp for 11 days, and the team called it a personal matter.
Bündchen said in interviews that she hoped he would eventually put football second and that she had needs of her own. Both of them described the divorce as a decision made with care and said they remained committed to raising their children together. Whether Brady would trade any of the late ones for a steadier home life is something only he can answer, and he has been careful about how much he says.
The breaking point looked sudden from outside, but the signs were there. Brady’s choice to keep playing was a choice about her time as well as his. The easy reading is that football beat the marriage. That is too neat. Plenty of athletes keep both, and nobody outside the home can know what went wrong there. Seven rings will be hard for anyone to match.