interview with Bündchen by the WSJ's Jason Gay. note, the interview was done before the super bowl.
WSJ Magazine: Gisele Bündchen Is a Force of Nature
WSJ Magazine: Gisele Bündchen Is a Force of Nature
“Do you know those things called Munchkins?’’ Bündchen asks, referring to the highly addictive doughnut-hole treats served at the Massachusetts-founded religion, I mean, bakery chain.
“Oh, my God,” she says. “I cannot have one. I have to have, like, 10. They’re so tiny…. It’s a guilty pleasure.”
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This all began, she says, with the couple’s 8-year-old son, Benjamin, and his early morning weekend hockey sessions. According to Bündchen, it was Brady—Mr. Avocado Ice Cream himself—who decided the family should bring boxes of Munchkins to practice.
“It’s become a thing that we bring it,” Bündchen says.
She laughs at suggestions that she’s behind her husband’s rakish style choices.
“I’ve never in my life told him to wear anything,” Bündchen says of Brady. “You should see our closets….It’s so funny. I would say that he likes fashion more than I like fashion. I would say he’s changed his haircut in one year more than I’ve changed in my whole life.
Overall, Bündchen says she gets way more credit for Brady’s moves than she deserves. She mentions the recent Tom vs Time Facebook documentary—she says it took a lot of convincing to get her on board to allow the cameras into their home.
“People are like, ‘Oh, Gisele must have told Tom [to do it],’ ” she says. “He’s the one who had to come and ask me.”
Bündchen has spoken in the past about her concerns with Brady’s football career, given the growing science about the long-term impact of concussions. “I’m entitled to have my concerns because my husband is the father of my children,” she says. “If you don’t have your health, what do you have?”
At the same time, Bündchen sees how passionate Brady remains about the game, how much joy he takes in playing, even now in his 40s.
“It’s not my decision to make,” she says of any retirement talk for Brady. “It’s his decision, and he knows it. It wouldn’t be fair any other way.
“He’s so focused right now,” she says. “He has a laser focus on just winning and being the best, and I said, ‘You know what? This is what you’re doing right now in your life, and you need to feel complete in it, because if I’m the one who comes and says something and then you make a decision based on something that I said—’ ”
He’d resent it?
“Yeah, and I would never in my life, ever. I want him to be happy. Believe me, I’ve been with him when he’s losing. Try to be with him after you have lost [Super Bowls]. I mean, I had my fair share, OK? As long as he’s happy, he’s going to be a better father, he’s going to be a better husband, and I just want him to be happy. I do have my concerns, like anyone would.”
It’s such a strange combination of professional worlds to straddle: fashion and football. I ask Gisele what would happen if she put Karl Lagerfeld at a table with Brady’s famously taciturn coach, Bill Belichick.
“I think they could have an interesting conversation, because they are very intelligent people,” she says, smiling. “I would love to be at that table.”
