Retired (for now) quarterback Tom Brady has various non-football business interests. One of them imploded in a spectacularly embarrassing way last year.
The FTX crypto exchange collapsed. Both Brady and his ex-wife, Gisele Bundchen, had key roles in the company. She was the head of environmental and social initiatives. They also starred in multiple FTX commercials.
Since then, their involvement has sparked a new tilte — defendant in civil litigation.
In a recent profile with Vanity Fair, Bundchen characterized herself as a victim of the grift, not as a participant in it.
“I was blindsided,” Bundchen said. “I’m no different than everyone else that trusted the hype.”
While she declined to delve into details due to pending legal entanglements, she said that she regarded FTX as “a sound and great thing based on what my financial advisers told me.”
“It’s just . . . terrible,” she said. “I’m so sorry for all of us that this happened, and I just pray that justice gets made.”
Part of justice getting made means justice possibly being done against Brady and Bundchen for their using their celebrity to spread the hype, and to allegedly dupe unsuspecting consumers.
The potential consequences are real. From civil lawsuits to potential SEC action (Lindsay Lohan and Jake Paul are some of the latest celebrities to end up under scrutiny), those who have gotten big money to help separate the born-every-minute sucker from their own cash may be writing some big checks to make things right.