I hate men but don’t blame Tom Brady for his divorce… I pity him. I’ve seen Gisele behind the scenes: LIZ JONES

I’m always fascinated by why two people, both blessed with beauty, fame, riches, good health and gorgeous children could possibly find a reason to get divorced, then snipe bitchily about each other until the end of time.

It turns out author Lars Anderson is even more nonplussed, given he has just published a biography that forensically picks over the bones of what on earth went wrong in the marriage of Tom Brady, the 49-year-old GOAT football player and supermodel Gisele Bündchen.

In Anderson’s new book, Brady: An American Story and the Price of Greatness, he writes how the former NFL player made a last-ditch effort to save his marriage while playing his final season. And how Brady was ‘stung’ by the timing of Bündchen’s pregnancy with her new husband, Joaquim Valente, whom she married in a private ceremony in 2025.

The couple divorced in October 2022 after 13 years of marriage during which they had two children, Benjamin and Vivian, 16 and 13.

Here’s the most revealing quote in the whole tome, spoken by Bruce Arians, a former coach, who was shocked at the quarterback’s appearance at the time of the divorce: ‘He looked like a cancer patient with really good hair.’

That’s the line that made me feel so desperately sorry for the man who lost not only 20 pounds, but also the most beautiful woman in the world.

The book, published last week, claims the divorce proceedings were set in motion because Gisele, who is into astrology, ‘Basically looked into the stars and told Tom, “We’re not compatible.”‘

I very much doubt that’s what happened: Even supermodels aren’t that stupid. Divorcing the father of your children is not something to be undertaken lightly.

The consensus is she was tired of putting her own career on the back burner while he continued to play, was away training and playing just as much as he ever was, even though he was by now in his forties. When he promised to retire, he reneged, yo yo’d, kept putting on that padding.

Gisele told ELLE magazine at the time: ‘I’ve done my part, which is [to] be there for [Tom]. I moved to Boston, and I focused on creating a cocoon and a loving environment for my children to grow up in and to be there supporting him and his dreams. Seeing my children succeed and become the beautiful little humans that they are, seeing him succeed, and being fulfilled in his career – it makes me happy. At this point in my life, I feel like I’ve done a good job on that.’

But isn’t that what marriage is about? Sometimes having to relocate, take a back seat and, surprise surprise, raise your own bloody children.

I imagine Gisele eventually got tired of making all that home-made granola by herself. ‘These incense sticks don’t light themselves, Tom!’

So, is Tom being a baby, or is Gisele a spoiled diva? Many online are saying the fact Brady lost his wife is karma, given he fathered a child, Jack, now 18, with his ex (Bridget Moynahan) before leaving her for the supermodel; in his defense, he was already seeing Gisele when Moynahan told him she was two months pregnant.

I’ve met Gisele a couple of times backstage in Paris and she was always a chatterbox, down to earth, someone who wore her staggering beauty lightly: she couldn’t wait to discard the catwalk clothes and make-up, pull on skinny jeans and flats and hare off into the night. She landed her first American Vogue cover in 1999, aged 18: inside, she was shot naked, with the headline: ‘The return of the curve.’

Her giddy rise to dominance was at first deemed a departure from the heroin chic of the Nineties, the rise of the ‘strong’ woman. But it turned out that was a smoke screen: when I hugged Gisele a year after that US Vogue cover, backstage at a Dior show, writing at the time it felt like ’embracing a sparrow’ and that her body, with its handspan waist but full breasts, all hell broke loose.

Her then agent said I had no right to criticize her, despite the fact in the 25 years since the number of young women undergoing cosmetic procedures skyrocketed, nicely proving my point, she was a dubious role model.

Gisele was soon under contract as a Victoria’s Secret Angel (eeewww!), joining a gang of girls to rival her own physique.

The picture painted of the Brady marriage has always been, until this new biography, one of the man who refused to slow down to be present for his family, while Gisele gave it all up, Princess Grace-styley, to be a Trad Wife.

While I’m sure she enjoyed playing mansion for a while, escaping the treadmill of constant travelling, posing naked in snow and so on, the accepted story is that she got fed up being ignored.

Perhaps Tom, like most athletes, is a simple soul or, to put it more rudely, boring (I can’t see how Gisele’s new husband, a jiu-jitsu instructor of all things, is much of an improvement).

Indeed, Tom was so blinkered about sport in college, so uninterested in dating his friends thought he was gay, according to Anderson’s book.

Gisele reminds me of Al Pacino’s disaffected wife in the movie Heat: She knew he was a dedicated, obsessive cop when she married him, so why bleat now?

Women are always complaining their husband doesn’t work hard enough, but when he does, we whine.

I’m reminded of the late, great Joan Rivers sketch about how much she hated Princess Diana: ‘”I’m not happy! I’m not happy!” She was tall, she was thin, she was gorgeous, she was rich, she had a husband who didn’t wanna sleep with her…’

Most women rejoice when their husband is always working. So, despite being a misandrist, I don’t entirely blame Tom for the split and feel this new book is, for the most part, a more balanced view of one of the most famous unconscious uncouplings of the modern era.

Gisele basked in pretty privilege doubtless all her life, is a perfectionist (did you see her jodhpurs in that Vogue short film about life on her Miami ranch? Not a hint of green slobber on them) and so I pity poor Tom, arriving home sweaty, bruised and battered, to discover, just as CK Dexter Haven did, that being married to Tracy Samantha Lord is damned hard work.

Perhaps, the moral of this whole sorry story is that it turns out Gisele too is a victim of the fashion and beauty industries: women have been brainwashed to never be satisfied; if we are, we stop shopping. We also have no patience, take no prisoners, refuse to compromise and believe nice things bring us happiness: not relationships, not family, not loyalty.

Has Gisele’s yearning to be back in the spotlight, the marrying down, all been worth it? No US Vogue cover since the divorce and she’s now, what, the global ambassador of Garnier Fructis? A bit of a comedown after wearing the game-changing Dior ‘Bar’ suit on the runway for the label’s 60th anniversary, held inside the Orangerie at Versailles. 

Her gorgeous head has been turned: she’s no longer the teenager desperate to shed couture and pull on skinny jeans. She’s no longer the big cottage cheese of the fashion world. No shame in that. The only pity is she thought she needed more.