A new biography of Tom Brady, which arrived in bookstores Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026, says the quarterback asked for an extended leave from training camp in the summer of 2022 to try to repair his marriage to Gisele Bündchen privately in the Bahamas.
“Brady: An American Story and the Price of Greatness,” by author Lars Anderson, is published by Celadon Books. The book gives a detailed account of the summer Brady’s marriage to Bündchen collapsed, and it devotes substantial space to the months before the divorce became public.
Anderson drew on interviews with coaches and people close to the seven-time Super Bowl champion. Brady is 49. Bündchen, his former wife, is 46. The couple finalized their divorce in October 2022, after 13 years of marriage.
A Hollowed-Out Look at Camp
Brady was the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ starting quarterback in the summer of 2022. Quarterbacks coach Clyde Christensen heard only that his quarterback had private matters to attend to, Anderson writes, when Brady asked for time away from camp.
Christensen recalled a hollowed-out, lifeless look in Brady’s eyes, and he wondered whether Brady was in some form of psychological shock. Anderson writes that something bad had blindsided the 45-year-old and drained him of his vitality.
Brady reported to camp nearly 20 pounds lighter, and coaches and teammates worried he was sick. Former Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians told Anderson the cause was no mystery: the stress of the personal trouble Brady was carrying.
One coach told Anderson that Brady “looked like a cancer patient with really good hair.” People attributed the line to Arians. Conditioning was a point of pride for Brady, according to Arians, who is quoted throughout the passage, which made the transformation jarring to those who knew him. Arians also said Brady seemed miserable and badly stressed.
The book notes the contrast with an earlier scene. The Buccaneers won Super Bowl LV on Feb. 7, 2021, and the couple celebrated together afterward at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla.
What Drove the Split
The book traces a series of disagreements between the couple over football and family. An unnamed source quoted by Anderson described the decisive moment: astrology fascinates Bündchen deeply, the source says, and she consulted the stars, then informed Brady that the two were not compatible. She was finished.
The same source says what set that in motion is harder to pin down. The source raises several possibilities: years of feeling she was not Brady’s top priority; a career he extended even after she had asked him to step away; or counsel from a spiritual adviser who pressed her to leave the marriage.
The source insists in the book that, whatever the trigger, this was nothing like an ordinary marital breakdown.
Two Posts After a Birth
Joaquim Valente, Bündchen’s new husband, became a father in February 2025 when she welcomed her first child with him. The timing of the pregnancy stung Brady, Anderson writes.
Fewer than 24 hours had passed since the birth when Brady, now a Fox Sports analyst, shared a passage on social media arguing that the way to be loved is to love, the way to be interesting is to be interested and the way to have a friend is to be one. Anderson writes that more than a few people with close ties to Brady took it as coded commentary on how he felt at the end of the marriage.
Just over a month after the birth, Brady posted a photograph taken at UCLA’s practice facility. The image shows his right arm extended, the ball spiraling out of his hand and the throw climbing into a sunset. He captioned it “True Love.”
Bündchen had leaned on that exact phrase over and over with people who knew Brady, Anderson writes, as her way of characterizing his relationship with football. To those who knew him, Anderson writes, the post read as anything but ambiguous. One friend called the post “the softest middle finger.”
Family and Life Since
Brady and Bündchen share a son, Benjamin, and a daughter, Vivian. Brady also has a son, Jack, 19, with his former girlfriend, actress Bridget Moynahan.
Her own wellness has been a subject Bündchen returns to at length in the years since. “The Rich Roll Podcast” hosted her for an episode published March 25, 2024, in which she discussed battling anxiety and panic attacks, her decision to abstain from alcohol, the boundaries she has set, her environmental advocacy and her hands-on approach to parenting.
