A new report on Thursday shed more light into what was going on behind the scenes between star NFL quarterback Tom Brady and his supermodel wife Gisele Bündchen.
News broke Tuesday that the power couple appeared to be heading toward divorce as Bündchen had hired a divorce lawyer amid weeks of speculation of marital problems centered around Brady’s decision to return to playing professional football after being retired for only several weeks.
Brady responded to Bündchen’s move by seeking his own legal representation in preparation of any potential divorce proceedings.
A new report from PEOPLE said that Brady was still holding out hopes of saving the marriage, that the apparent move to end the marriage was her decision, and that he is emotionally devastated over the matter.
“It’s pretty obvious that he’s hurting,” a source close to Brady told the publication. “He feels very hurt by her.”
While his decision to return to the gridiron was an obvious source of “a lot of tension” between the two, other sources told the publication that there was “a lot more to” their martial problems, adding that it was “complicated.”
“She is the one steering the divorce,” a source told the publication. “She is playing offense and he is playing defense. He wants to protect himself, protect his interests, but he’s only starting to go the legal route in his defense from her. He doesn’t want this to be ugly, he doesn’t want to fight. If the divorce is happening — and it seems like it is — he wants it to go as smoothly as possible.”
The source said that Brady’s success at seemingly everything he does makes his marital problems even more difficult to accept because he is not used to failure.
“Think about it: Tom has had a very charmed life,” the source said. “Things always seem to go his way. He works hard, he’s a good guy, he hasn’t had a lot of things go wrong in his life. This is awful for him. You can tell that this really, really hurts.”
Bündchen was seen in public this week not wearing her wedding ring in what was called a “subtle statement” by some online. Brady responded by making the same subtle statement later in week, appearing in an Instagram video about his fitness brand, TB12, where he flashed his hand in front of the camera and it showed that he was not wearing his wedding ring.