Tom Brady didn’t have the best season last year on or off the field, but his ex-wife Gisele Bündchen is setting the record straight about all of the rumors.
Last season didn’t go the way anyone in Tampa Bay thought it would. The exuberance that was injected into the fan base by the return of Tom Brady ended with bitter disappointment and a sour taste that not many expected after the way things started.
Hindsight is everything, but it seems pretty clear that Brady should have rode off into the sunset after winning the Super Bowl back in 2020. The ensuing two seasons saw diminishing returns that were taken to the extreme last year when the Bucs finished the year with a losing record and a blowout playoff loss.
That’s how Brady’s career ended, and it’s only amplified the idea that he should have walked away two years before he did.
His last season in the league will always be colored with the context of what was happening in his personal life. Brady and Gisele Bündchen ended their marriage in October, something that was understandably causing a distraction behind the scenes in Tampa Bay.
It’s impossible to separate his person life from his professional one, as emphatically unfair as that is, and the tabloids ran laps around the couple as a result. A deeply sexist narrative arose out of the drama that blamed Gisele for pressuring Brady into either choosing her or choosing a life in football.
Nobody stopped to ponder that for more than the time it took to punch up a snarky tweet, but it came to define the entire saga.
After a year of getting dragged like the knuckles on the folks hurling insults her way, Gisele has clapped back.
Gisele Bündchen comments on Tom Brady retirement rumors
Speaking with Vanity Fair recently, Gisele finally commented on the narrative that she was forcing Brady to retire and demanded he choose her over a life in football.
"When I ask Bündchen if there were stories written about their split that simply weren’t true, she flatly replies, “Everything.”“Like, I would give up my dream because of…” Bündchen trails off.“One more season?” I attempt to fill in.“Wow, people really made it about that,” she says. …“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, and if you want to fly the same direction, then that’s amazing.”"
This isn’t surprising to folks who breathe out of their nose and keep the glue sticks out of their mouths, but it’s still nice to hear Gisele speak her peace.
And for the Bucs fans who slammed her, Gisele put any notion that she wasn’t all-in on Brady’s career in Tampa Bay even after their divorce.
Gisele sounded like every other heartbroken Bucs fans when asked about the way the season ended.
“It was tough,” Bündchen said. “I think he did great under the circumstances that he had. I mean, he had no offensive line.”
That doesn’t sound like someone who wasn’t locked in as a fan of the team and her former husband.
If anything it’s refreshing to hear Gisele clear the air and that she was bought in as a fan. It won’t put an end to the vitriol from trolls, but it goes a long way in helping set the record straight about a season that Bucs fans — Gisele included — want to forget.