A new biography of Tom Brady arrived in bookstores Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026, carrying a granular account of the summer his marriage to Gisele Bündchen collapsed — including the claim that the quarterback asked for an extended leave from training camp so he could try to repair the relationship privately in the Bahamas.
The book, “Brady: An American Story and the Price of Greatness,” is written by Lars Anderson and published by Celadon Books. It draws on interviews with coaches and people close to the seven-time Super Bowl champion, and it devotes substantial space to the months before the divorce became public.
Brady, 49, and Bündchen, 46, finalized their divorce in October 2022 after 13 years of marriage. They share son Benjamin and daughter Vivian. Brady also has a son, Jack, 19, with his former girlfriend, actress Bridget Moynahan.
A Quiet Retreat to the Bahamas
In the summer of 2022, Brady — then the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ starting quarterback — sought time away from camp, telling quarterbacks coach Clyde Christensen only that he had private matters to attend to, Anderson writes. Christensen recalled a hollowed-out, lifeless look in Brady’s eyes and wondered whether the quarterback was in some form of psychological shock. Something bad, Anderson writes, had blindsided the 45-year-old and drained him of his vitality.
The physical evidence alarmed the building. Brady reported to camp nearly 20 pounds lighter, and coaches and teammates worried that he was sick. Former Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians told Anderson there was no mystery about the cause: the stress of the personal trouble Brady was carrying. Brady, Arians said, “looked like a cancer patient with really good hair.”
Arians, quoted throughout the passage, said Brady took pride in his conditioning, which made the transformation jarring to those who knew him, and that the quarterback seemed miserable and badly stressed. It was a stark reversal from Feb. 7, 2021, when the couple celebrated together at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla., after the Buccaneers won Super Bowl LV.
An Unexpected Reason for the Split
The book traces a series of disagreements between the couple over football and family. But the decisive moment, according to an unnamed source quoted by Anderson, arrived from an unexpected direction. Bündchen, who the source says is deeply interested in astrology, looked to the stars, told Brady the two were not compatible and was finished.
What set that in motion, the same source says, is harder to pin down. The source raises the possibility that years of feeling she was not Brady’s top priority played a role, or that he kept playing after she asked him to step away, or that a spiritual adviser urged her to leave the marriage. Whatever the trigger, the source insists in the book, this was nothing like an ordinary marital breakdown.
Cryptic Messages on Instagram
Bündchen welcomed her first child with her husband, Joaquim Valente, in February 2025. Anderson writes that Brady was stung by the timing of the pregnancy. Less than 24 hours after the birth, 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. More than a few people with close ties to Brady, Anderson writes, took it as coded commentary on how he felt at the end of the marriage.
The second post was less subtle. Just over a month after the birth, Brady posted a photograph taken at UCLA’s practice facility: his right arm extended, the ball spiraling out of his hand, the throw climbing into a sunset. The caption was “True Love” — the same phrase, Anderson writes, that Bündchen had used again and again to describe Brady’s relationship with football. To those who knew him, the post read as anything but ambiguous, Anderson writes; one friend called it “the softest middle finger” ever aimed at an ex-wife.
Bündchen has spoken at length about her own wellness in the years since. In an episode of “The Rich Roll Podcast” published March 25, 2024, 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.