Inside Tom Brady's Life After Football and Divorce From Gisele Bündchen

This has been an extremely different kind of summer for Tom Brady.

For the first time since he embarked on his 23-season NFL career in 2000, Brady doesn't have to be game-ready come September.

Not that he isn't still in impressive shape, maintaining his 46-year-old temple still a top priority for the Aug. 3 birthday boy and father of son Jack, 15, with former girlfriend Bridget Moynahan and Benjamin, 13, and daughter Vivian, 10, with ex-wife Gisele Bündchen. But his schedule these days—almost 10 months since his divorce was finalized and only six since retiring from football for real—is more about squeezing in tee times and parties in the Hamptons while taking meetings and hanging out with his kids.

"I have not been bored, I would say that," Brady told E! News from his Florida home in June, noting he'd just come back from attending a wedding in Europe. "There's been a lot going on."

In fact, he was admittedly "maybe a little bit busier than I would like."

While the TB12 founder always had various irons in the fire, Brady's so-called retirement looks to somehow be even more packed: He's already purchased a piece of the WNBA's Las Vegas Aces as well as invested in the E1 World Championship, an electric boat-racing circuit, and he wants a minority stake in the Las Vegas Raiders. The Bay Area native called the former Oakland team an "iconic NFL franchise," telling the Associated Press it would be "a dream come true" to be involved and something he'd be "interested in doing for the rest of my life."

He also told E! at the Jan. 31 premiere of 80 for Brady, co-starring the 15-time Pro Bowl pick as himself, that he was "definitely" open to more acting and producing. And, while he was still playing, he signed a reported 10-year, $375 million deal to join Fox's NFL broadcasting team. He's planning to head into the booth in 2024 after he spends this upcoming season away from the game.

One of the few things not on the horizon for the empire-builder is a reality show—"I lived in reality TV for 23 years," he told E! in June—and suiting up once again for an NFL team. Though try telling that to the players who aren't entirely buying this whole retired-for-good business.

"I'm sure we're still reaching out to him trying to see if he's trying to come back to the team," Tampa Bay Buccaneers defensive back Antoine Winfield Jr., who won a Super Bowl with Brady in 2021, said on the July 12 episode of The Richard Sherman Podcast. "Hey, it could happen. Anything's possible."

But probably not this.

Unlike the first time, in 2022, when reports of his retirement turned out to be greatly exaggerated, Brady announced Feb. 1, "I'm retiring, for good." He wouldn't be "long-winded," he promised, since "you only get one super emotional retirement essay, and I used mine up last year."

Calling it a career after winning a record seven Super Bowl rings, he finally found "a little more time to do some other things," he told E! in June.

Top of mind for him at that moment, however, was that it happened to be the last day of school for Ben and Vivian—each of whom, he'd found out that morning, had grown 2 inches in two months. "It's the individual moments that you share with the kids," Brady marveled. "I remember those moments with my parents, when I was under their roof, and they were able to shape me into the person I ended up becoming." 

At the same time, he wanted his children to "grow up as their own unique individuals, with their own unique traits," Brady noted. "They're going to contribute into the world in the way that they see fit, and certainly not the way that their mom or dad see."

"They've got some fun things planned with me and their mom, to travel to different parts of the world," he said of their then-upcoming summer vacation. On the home front, he still had to "take care of some professional responsibilities, things I'm looking forward to in the fall," Brady said. "There's still a lot on my plate, it's not going to be a super-chill summer, but there'll be enough fun in between some work commitments."

Highlights from the Brady bunch's subsequent adventures, courtesy of Dad's Instagram, included a visit to Disneyland during a swing through California, taking flying leaps off a yacht in the Greek isles, enjoying a rustic lakeside retreat and a safari with Vivian, the view from their breakfast table including elephants grazing on the veld.  

"Always thinking about others," he captioned a picture of his daughter offering muffin crumbs to a bird. 

Last month, Brady shared a shot of Jack and Ben walking toward the ocean, punctuated with a few heart emojis.

"I'm trying to raise them—we all are, myself and their mom—in a very loving way toward one another," he told E!, "to be very kind, very empathetic, and to have great perspective. Our kids are growing up in different ways than we grew up, but also we want to raise them with the right values."

And though he's a world away from his humbler roots in San Mateo, Calif., he noted, "I still feel like I'm very much the same person that is going to do the best I could do with my kids, going to do the best I could do with the people I work with, and the people that I'm continuing to move forward in life with."

What Brady has not done in recent months is say much about the end of his marriage beyond his initial statement, as Bündchen did in the March 2023 issue of Vanity Fair. 

Calling their divorce "the death of [her] dream," the Brazilian supermodel told the magazine, "It's tough because you imagine your life was going to be a certain way, and you did everything you could, you know?" But, she added, "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."

Brady opened up in unprecedented ways while in the fourth quarter of his career, first with the Facebook Watch series Tom vs. Time, filmed during the 2017 season, and then the ESPN+ docuseries Man in the Arena—and he has candidly acknowledged that his commitment to football had made him less of a partner to Bündchen than he should have been during the season. (Of which there was one every year they were married.)

So he might delve further into his side of the story one day, but in the meantime, maintaining a stiff upper lip is the name of the game. Brady paid tribute to Bündchen, Moynahan and his own mom, Galynn Brady—all "amazing women"—on Mother's Day.

"Thank you all for your love, compassion and kindness, and for setting such an amazing example for all of our little ones," he wrote on Instagram. "We are all so grateful for your support and helping us all achieve our dreams."

When the co-parenting routine means his kids are with their mom, Brady is usually on the go.

On June 10 he was in northwestern France to catch the start of 24 Hours of Le Mans, and by the next day he was in Paris for the French Open men's singles final, watching from a VIP perch in champion Novak Djokovic's family box. For July 4th Brady donned the requested all-white ensemble for Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin's big bash in the Hamptons, where Brady rubbed elbows with the likes of Jay-Z, James Harden and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who called his team's former star "one of the most loving, caring and passionate players I have ever known" after Brady's retirement.

"Nobody does a party like @michaelrubin," Brady captioned a handful of pics from the event. "i definitely needed ALOT of electrolytes today."

And as celebrities do when they're single, the 6-foot-4 athlete has sparked his share of new-romance speculation, the list so far including Kim Kardashian ("friends and business partners in common, but not dating," a source told E!), Reese Witherspoon (not true, her rep said) and Irina Shayk (photographed together looking quite friendly in L.A.).

Meanwhile, Brady tries his best to stay above the fray, even when the high road is not the easiest route.

"I get to look in the mirror and know the choices that I make," Brady told E! of dealing with the rumor mill. "I know how the world is today. There's a lot of things that are said that are there to create business opportunities for people."

But, he added, "News changes pretty fast and I honestly just go with the flow, just do the best with the opportunities that are presented in front of me. And if there are things that are written or said, you can't necessarily go out and control them, not that I'm trying to control anything anyway. I'm just trying to live a life of integrity and do the best I could."