Gisele Bündchen finally responded to the rumors that she cheated on her ex-husband Tom Brady amid questions about the timeline of her romance with her jiu-jitsu trainer Joaquim Valente.
Speaking to The New York Times, the 43-year-old supermodel shut down speculation that she was unfaithful to the retired Super Bowl-winning QB before the couple announced their split in October 2022.
“That is a lie,” Bündchen told the outlet, “I really don’t want to make my life a tabloid. I don’t want to open myself up to all of that.”
“This is something that happens to a lot of women who get blamed when they have the courage to leave an unhealthy relationship and are labeled as being unfaithful,” she added. “They have to deal with their communities. They have to deal with their family. Of course for me, it just happens to be a little bit amplified.”
“No one really knows what happens between two people, only the two people in the relationship,” Bündchen continued.
In October 2022, Brady confirmed he and Bündchen were divorced after 13 years of marriage. That same day a court declared the couple’s marriage “irretrievably broken” and dissolved, People magazine noted.
Bündchen and Valente first began working together in December 2021, Page Six noted. Starting in 2022, the two were photographed out and about in Miami and Costa Rica, the outlet added. However, in March 2023, Bündchen shut down rumors they were ever anything more than friends, Vanity Fair noted.
“He’s our teacher and, most importantly, he’s a person that I admire and that I trust,” the supermodel said. “It’s so good to have that kind of energy, to have my kids around that type of energy.”
In June 2023, the two reportedly started dating, Page Six noted. And in February, a source told Page Six the couple are “deeply in love.”
Bündchen spoke to The Times and confirmed she and Valente are dating.
After a very public divorce, a back injury and shoulder surgeries, Gisele Bündchen is reclaiming her strength. The supermodel opened up about life in Miami and her new cookbook, “Nourish.” https://t.co/hCGQkClw7o pic.twitter.com/1sGTUb5xhN
— The New York Times (@nytimes) March 24, 2024
“It is the first time I am seeing someone that was a friend of mine first,” the model said. “It’s very different. It is very honest, and it’s very transparent.”
In February, a source close to Brady told the Daily Mail, “If she [Bündchen] wants to have people think she has been dating Joaquim only since June, so be it, but they have been together longer and they aren’t taking it slow. Tom has accepted it.”
Brady himself a year earlier made a cryptic post on Instagram about the “betrayal of false friends,” which included three heart emojis, after Bündchen broke her silence on what led to their divorce.
In the March 2023 Vanity Fair article, the supermodel responded to rumors that Brady’s refusal, at the time, to walk away from football had something to do with their split. Bündchen said that she and Brady ended their 13 years of marriage because “sometimes you grow together; sometimes you grow apart.”
Brady and Bündchen share two kids together.