'The death of my dream.' Gisele Bündchen speaks about divorcing Tom Brady for the first time.

A few years ago, if you were to Google "celebrity power couples", you would have found Gisele Bündchen and Tom Brady near the top of that list.

The supermodel and seven-time Super Bowl champion who are equally successful in their own right, were married for 13 years, and share two children, Benjamin and Vivian.

However, after months of speculation, the couple announced their separation in October 2022. 

"With much gratitude for our time together, Tom and I have amicably finalised our divorce," Bündchen wrote in a statement on Instagram at the time. 

"My priority has always been and will continue to be our children whom I love with all my heart. We will continue co-parenting to give them the love, care and attention they greatly deserve."

"The decision to end a marriage is never easy, but we have grown apart and while it is, of course, difficult to go through something like this, I feel blessed for the time we had together and only wish the best for Tom always," she said.

Image: Instagram.

At the time, the quarterback called the divorce "painful and difficult".

"In recent days, my wife and I finalised our divorce from one another after 13 years of marriage. We arrived at this decision amicably and with gratitude for the time we spent together," Brady wrote. 

"We are blessed with beautiful and wonderful children who will continue to be the centre of our world in every way.

"We wish only the best for each other as we pursue new chapters in our lives that are yet to be written."

Now, five months after announcing their divorce, Bündchen has opened up in an interview with Vanity Fair, saying the separation was "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?" said Bündchen, who features on the April cover. 

"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." 

Watch: Gisele Bündchen shows Jimmy Fallon planking exercises. Post continues after video.

The 42-year-old also addressed rumours the couple split due to Brady's choice to un-retire from football and that she supposedly gave her husband an ultimatum to choose their relationship over his career.

"What’s been said is one piece of a much bigger puzzle. It’s not so black and white," she told the publication, adding the speculation was "very hurtful".

"Listen, I have always cheered for him, and I would continue forever," she explained. "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."

Bündchen, who said the split was "like a death and a rebirth", went on to share the couple drifted apart after 13 years of marriage. 

"Sometimes you grow together; sometimes you grow apart," she said. "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 realise 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."

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A post shared by Gisele Bündchen (@gisele)

Here's a look back at the couple's relationship, from how they met to their two children. 

Gisele Bündchen and Tom Brady's relationship. 

Gisele Bündchen and Tom Brady met in December 2006. According to the supermodel, now 42, it was love at first sight.

"I knew right way — the first time I saw him," she told Vanity Fair in 2009. 

"We met through a friend. The moment I saw him, he smiled, and I was like, 'That is the most beautiful, charismatic smile I've ever seen!'" she continued.

"We sat and talked for three hours. I had to go home for Christmas, but I didn't want to leave.

"You know that feeling of, like, you can't get enough? From the first day we met, we've never spent one day without speaking to each other."

In January 2007, they officially started dating.

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A post shared by Gisele Bündchen (@gisele)

Before he met Bündchen, Brady, now 45, was dating actress Bridget Moynahan. 

Just a month into his new relationship, Moynahan announced she was pregnant with his son.

"Two months into our relationship, Tom told me that his ex-girlfriend was pregnant," Gisele wrote in her memoir, Lessons: My Path to a Meaningful Life.

"The very next day the news was everywhere, and I felt my world had been turned upside down. Needless to say, that wasn't an easy time, but it was a time that brought about so much growth."

When appearing on CBS This Morning in 2011, the supermodel shared how the pregnancy made her reconsider dating Brady.

"I felt like I didn't know what to do," she said, according to The Boston Globe. 

"It was one of those moments of like, 'Do I just run away?' Eight years later, I couldn't have asked for a sweeter bonus child."

Brady and Bündchen stayed together, and in August 2007, John Edward Thomas Moynahan was born.

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A post shared by Tom Brady (@tombrady)

In January 2009, the couple got engaged.

Although multiple publications reported the football star proposed on a private jet, Bündchen told Vogue's 73 Questions that Brady tricked her into thinking her house was flooding.

"When I got there, the whole apartment had candles and rose petals everywhere, and then he went down on his knees to propose, and I'm like, 'Get up!' because he had just had surgery and had three staph infections," Bündchen said in the 2018 video.

"And I was like 'What are you doing?' He's like, 'I gotta go on my knees,' and I'm like, 'No, no, no! Get up, please!'"

They got married in a small ceremony at a Catholic church in California. 

"We planned it in like 10 days, and it was perfect," Brady told GQ. 

The couple then held a second ceremony two months later on a beach in Costa Rica, where they own a house. 

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A post shared by Gisele Bündchen (@gisele)

On December 8, 2009, Bündchen gave birth to the couple's first child together, Benjamin Rein Brady. 

She delivered him in the bathtub of her Boston penthouse. 

"The doctor told me that it was too dangerous for me to have a home birth," she wrote in her memoir. 

"He said that Benny was in an unusual position, my hips were too small, and the odds just weren't in my favour. My attitude was, 'I don't think you get to decide this!' No one was going to talk me out of it."

Three years later, on December 5, 2012, the couple welcomed their second child, a daughter named Vivian Lake Brady. 

Bündchen didn't publicly announce her second pregnancy until after having the baby.

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A post shared by Gisele Bündchen (@gisele4444eeeeeeee4ewe4sxe5)

In 2015, divorce rumours swirled after Brady was suspended from playing NFL after allegedly ordering the deliberate deflation of footballs used during the 2014 American Football Conference Championship Game. The scandal was dubbed "Deflategate".

But Bündchen put the rumours to rest, telling CBS: "My father always says the quality of your life depends on the quality of your relationships.

"And I think no matter how challenging it was, we were always being supportive of one another. And you know, that's the most important thing you can have in your life... a support system and love."

That same year, Bündchen retired from modelling after over 20 years in the industry to focus on their family.

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A post shared by Gisele Bündchen (@gisele)

In 2018, Brady told Oprah Winfrey how the couple discuss when he would retire too.

"I talk about it with my wife all the time. You can ask her tonight," he said. 

"She'll tell you, like, 'I told him, you know, what more do you want?'"

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A post shared by Tom Brady (@tombrady)

In January 2022, Brady announced he would be retiring after 22 decorated seasons in the NFL. 

At the time, he said he wanted to spend more time with his family as the reason for his decision to stop professionally. 

"My wife is my biggest supporter," Brady said on his Let’s Go! podcast. 

"It pains her to see me get hit out there, and she deserves what she needs from me as a husband and my kids deserve what they need from me as a dad.

"I’m gonna spend some time with them and give them what they need, because they’ve really been giving me what I need the last six months – to do what I need to do and I said this a few years ago.

"It’s what relationships are all about. It’s not always about what I want. It’s about what we want as a family. And I’m gonna spend a lot of time with them and figure out in the future what’s next."

After over a decade of limiting herself to a few advertising campaigns and magazine covers a year, as reported by Elle, Bündchen is ready to head back to work.

The model has spent much of the last decade raising her three children, one of which is her stepson. 

"I’m so grateful to have been there in those moments that were really shaping who they are as people," she told Elle. 

"I feel very fulfilled, as a mother and as a wife. And now it’s going to be my turn."

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A post shared by Gisele Bündchen (@gisele)

Six weeks after announcing his retirement, Brady returned for another season with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. 

In September 2022, reports emerged that the couple were no longer living together. 

Brady was also notably missing for 11 days from training camp in August, which he took for "personal things".

Per a three-page legal document obtained by People, the divorce was filed and finalised on October 28. The paperwork officially declared the marriage as dissolved, and "irretrievably broken".

Feature Image: Instagram/@gisele.

This article was published on October 31, 2021 and has been updated since.

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