At a time when many believe that the wife of Patriots quarterback Tom Brady will have significant influence over his decision to retire from football, Gisele Bundchen insists that it will be his call.
"“It’s not my decision to make,” Bundchen recently told the Wall Street Journal. “It’s his decision, and he knows it. It wouldn’t be fair any other way. He’s so focused right now. 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 --"
The thought was then completed for her: “He’d resent it?”
“Yeah, and I would never in my life, ever,” she said. “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.”
Bundchen first publicly articulated those concerns last May, when she spontaneously disclosed that Brady has suffered previously-undisclosed concussions.
“I’m entitled to have my concerns because my husband is the father of my children,” Bundchen told the Wall Street Journal. “If you don’t have your health, what do you have?”
Then notion that Bundchen may be pushing Brady to retire first emerged after the Patriots’ stunning comeback in Super Bowl LI, with Brady jokingly saying Bundchen told him that he should walk away. It became much less of a joke once she revealed that he has had concussions. And that let to speculation that she’ll either push him to retire or, at a minimum, she’ll continue to raise questions until he decides to do what she arguably has wanted him to do for at least a year, if not longer.