Tom Brady has openly acknowledged that his highly publicized 2022 divorce from Gisele Bündchen weighed heavily on him during his final NFL season, offering rare insight into how personal challenges intersected with the closing chapter of his football career.
Appearing Thursday on The Herd with Colin Cowherd, Brady reflected on his final season with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The team finished 8–9, marking the first losing season of his 23-year NFL career. Brady officially retired in February 2023.
“My last season was tough,” Brady told Cowherd. “I was going through, I had a lot of, you know, just a personal family issue. And it was a challenge, and it was very … It just took a lot out of me in terms of my ability to play.”
Heartbreaking: Tom Brady speaks about how rough his divorce from Gisele Bündchen was during his final year in the NFL.
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“I had a lot of personal family issues, and it was a challenge. It just took a lot out of me in terms of my ability to continue to play.”
You can just see the… pic.twitter.com/x9Hy4WjbNB
The season unfolded amid intense media scrutiny surrounding Brady’s marriage to Bündchen, the Brazilian supermodel he divorced in October 2022 after 13 years together. That personal upheaval coincided with Brady’s decision to return to the field following a brief retirement earlier that year, further complicating what would become the final campaign of his storied career.
Despite the personal challenges he faced, Brady said he remained fully committed to his responsibilities as a teammate and leader. “I understood in my last year that I tried to put as much as I could into it,” he said.
The 48-year-old added, “I felt like I owed to my teammates and coaches to give them everything I had. I wish it could have been a little bit better at the end. But it was just a unique situation and a unique year for me.”
Tom Brady’s Retirement Decision Was Shaped By Family Priorities
Colin Cowherd also asked Tom Brady how he ultimately knew it was time to walk away from the game, prompting the former quarterback to reflect on the social media video he shared announcing his retirement, filmed while he sat alone on a beach.
Brady explained, “I had 23 years of (football), so I didn’t think I was missing anything, retiring. I felt like this is time. I always had a goal — 45. I was 45 years old, I wanted to spend time with my kids, I felt like, okay, now it’s time for me to be at all my kids’ games. They’ve been to enough of their dad’s games.”
Brady and Bündchen share two children — son Benjamin and daughter Vivian. Brady also has a 17-year-old son, Jack, from his previous relationship with actress Bridget Moynahan. Despite their split, Brady and Bündchen continue to co-parent their children.
Since the divorce, Bündchen has moved forward personally. She married her longtime boyfriend, jiu-jitsu instructor Joaquim Valente, in an intimate ceremony in Surfside, Florida, last December. The couple welcomed their first child together in February.
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Brady’s final season followed a dramatic reversal earlier in 2022, when he ended a 40-day retirement to return to the Buccaneers for what he described at the time as “unfinished business.”
His comeback came after Tampa Bay’s Super Bowl LV triumph over the Kansas City Chiefs in February 2021, a dominant 31–9 victory that capped his first season with the franchise.
