By Marisa Laudadio
10:26pm PDT, Mar 23, 2023
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Gisele Bundchen opened up about her divorce from Tom Brady in Vanity Fair's April 2023 cover story, which hit the internet on March 22. Here are the highlights — what she says caused their split, how she's navigating custody of their two kids, dating reports and more…
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How she's doing a few months post-divorce:
"It's like a death and a rebirth," Gisele Bundchen told Vanity Fair following her October 2022 divorce from Tom Brady after 13 years of marriage. The supermodel said she's mourning "the death of my dream. It's tough because you imagine your life was going to be a certain way, and you did everything you could, you know?" Her voice broke at this point and her eyes were pink and watery, leading her to apologize and take some deep breaths, Vanity Fair reported. Gisele then added, "I believed in fairy tales when I was a kid. I think it's beautiful to believe in that. I mean, I'm so grateful I did. … You give everything you got to achieve your dream. You give a hundred percent of yourself, and it's heartbreaking when it doesn't end up the way you hoped for, and worked for, but you can only do your part."
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What she thinks of reports claiming Tom Brady's decision to un-retire from the NFL caused their split:
"Wow, people really made it about that," Gisele Bundchen told Vanity Fair. "What's been said is one piece of a much bigger puzzle. It's not so black and white." She also shot down speculation that politics — a MAGA hat was seen in Tom Brady's locker in 2015 — contributed to their demise. "Never," she said.
The end of her marriage wasn't sudden. "That takes years to happen," she said, explaining that characterizations that if Tom's football career continued, their marriage would not were "very hurtful" and "the craziest thing I've ever heard." She continued, "Listen, I have always cheered for him, and I would continue forever. If there's one person I want to be the happiest in the world, it's him, believe me. I want him to achieve and to conquer. I want all his dreams to come true. That's what I want, really, from the bottom of my heart."
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What she says really caused her split from Tom Brady:
"Sometimes you grow together; sometimes you grow apart," Gisele Bundchen told Vanity Fair. "When I was 26 years old and he was 29 years old, we met, we wanted a family, we wanted things together. As time goes by, we realize that we just wanted different things, and now we have a choice to make. That doesn't mean you don't love the person. It just means that in order for you to be authentic and truly live the life that you want to live, you have to have somebody who can meet you in the middle, right? It's a dance. It's a balance."
She continued, "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."
How she navigates custody:
Gisele Bundchen told Vanity Fair that she's using her experience co-parenting former step-son Jack — Tom Brady's son with ex Bridget Moynahan — to figure out how to co-parent her and Tom's two kids, Benjamin and Vivian. "I say to Bridget — you know, I have a great relationship with her…" Gisele said before declaring, "Everything in life comes with work. You have to go through the roller coaster. You have moments where you get to the sticky points and you've gotta overcome it." She admitted she and Bridget did not always have a good relationship. However, she said, "Love conquers all. My life became so much richer because I got to learn so much from that," with the main lesson being, "Nothing is worth fighting [over]."
Her goal with Bridget "was always, How can I be the most helpful? How can I make it the easiest I possibly can? I put myself in her shoes and I was like, 'How can I support her?' Because in the end of the day, we are team players in 'How are we going to do this so [Jack] can have the best life?'" Gisele is focused on maintaining a good relationship with Tom moving forward. "We're not playing against each other," she said. "We are a team and that's beautiful. I look back and I have no regrets. I loved every bit of it."
On reports she's dating her family's jujitsu instructor:
"I think, at this point, unfortunately, because I'm divorced, I'm sure that they're going to try to attach me to anything," Gisele Bundchen told Vanity Fair of reports romantically linking her to Joaquim Valente, her family's Miami-based Brazilian jujitsu instructor. "I'm so grateful to know all of [the Valente brothers], because not only have they helped me and helped my kids, but they have become great friends, and Joaquim especially," she said. "He's our teacher and, most importantly, he's a person that I admire and that I trust. It's so good to have that kind of energy, to have my kids around that type of energy."
On reports she's dating billionaire Jeffrey Soffer:
"I have zero relationship with him in any way," Gisele Bundchen told Vanity Fair of reports claiming she's quietly been dating Elle Macpherson's ex-husband Jeffrey Soffer, a billionaire real estate developer in his mid-50s. "He's Tom [Brady]'s friend, not my friend. I wouldn't be with his friend. I wouldn't be with this guy. I mean, puh-leeze. They were saying I'm with this guy, he's old, because he's got money — it's ridiculous."
Her surprising reveal about moving from Massachusetts to Florida:
"When we moved to Tampa, I actually had never been there before," Gisele Bundchen told Vanity Fair of her major movie from the Boston suburbs to Florida's West Coast after then-husband Tom Brady left the New England Patriots and signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2020. "I just arrived and that was my life."
What she wants her children to see:
"I have dreams. I have my own dreams," Gisele Bundchen told Vanity Fair, explaining that she wants her kids to see her pursue them. "You want to show them that, in life, you have to find real fulfillment, not living something that you're not."
