Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen announce divorce
Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen, who married in 2009, plan to file for divorce on Friday, a source with direct knowledge told CNN.
They will mutually petition for dissolution of marriage in Florida, according to the source.
Brady and Bündchen confirmed on Friday that they have “finalized their divorce” after 13 years of marriage.
“We arrived at this decision amicably and with gratitude for the time we spent together. We are blessed with beautiful and wonderful children who will continue to be the center of our world in every way. We will continue to work together as parents to always ensure they receive the love and attention they deserve,” Brady wrote on his Instagram Story. “We arrived at this decision to end our marriage after much consideration.”
Bündchen echoed with a statement of her own.
“With much gratitude for our time together, Tom and I have amicably finalized our divorce. 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,” she wrote. “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.”
“We wish only the best for each other as we pursue whatever new chapters in our lives that are yet to be written,” Brady added in his post.
CNN has previously reported that Brady, a seven-time Super Bowl champion quarterback who currently plays for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and his wife, Bündchen, a fashion model, had hired divorce attorneys and had been dealing with “marital issues,” according to a source close to the couple.
The two, had been “living separately,” a source close to Bündchen told CNN in September.
Brady, 45, had retired from the NFL in February, only to later reverse that decision. He took an 11-day leave of absence from training camp in August to “deal with personal things,” according to his head coach Todd Bowles.
In an interview with Elle magazine published last month, Bündchen, 42, said she had “concerns” about her husband returning to the field after initially retiring last winter.
“This is a very violent sport, and I have my children and I would like him to be more present,” Bündchen told the publication. “I have definitely had those conversations with him over and over again. But ultimately, I feel that everybody has to make a decision that works for [them]. He needs to follow his joy, too.”
In a recent conversation on his podcast, Brady talked about some of the personal costs of playing in the NFL for two decades.
“I haven’t had a Christmas in 23 years and I haven’t had a Thanksgiving in 23 years, I haven’t celebrated birthdays with people that I care about that are born from August to late January. And I’m not able to be at funerals and I’m not able to be at weddings,” Brady said. “I think there comes a point in your life where you say: ‘You know what? I’ve had my fill and it’s enough and time to go on, to move into other parts of life.’”