Tom Brady made winning the Super Bowl look easy, but now he faces the ever-changing pressures of parenthood. Even for the greatest player in NFL history, he acknowledges being a father is “a challenge.”
“And every parent out there knows it’s hard to be a good parent,” Brady said in an interview with Stephen A. Smith on Friday at Fanatics Fest in New York. “There’s a lot of things that keep you busy, but you still try to be a good dad and do your best for your kids.”
Brady said she often doesn’t hear from her 14-year-old son Benjamin, 16-year-old son Jack and 11-year-old daughter Vivian unless they want something.
“Every time they call me I know they have a request, because when they don’t call I don’t hear from them, and when I don’t hear from them I know they don’t want anything,” he said.
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Tom Brady will play his final NFL game against the Dallas Cowboys in the NFC Wild Card Playoffs on January 16, 2023 at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida. (Julio Aguilar/Getty Images)
The bright side for Brady about watching his kids grow up is that they’ve become more understanding of why he spent so much time away from his family throughout his career. Brady played in the NFL from 2000-2022.
After a year away from the game, Brady will take over as FOX’s top NFL commentator this season.
“As your kids get older and start taking on adult responsibilities, you start to appreciate them,” Brady says. “As a dad who works hard and provides for your family, you need to step away and focus on work for a bit.”
Brady’s time away from his career and family was famously unexpectedly extended into 2022, which preceded his divorce. In January of that year, Brady said on a SiriusXM podcast: “Let’s go!“Being attacked on the field at that point was not ideal for him or his marriage to Gisele Bundchen.”
Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Tom Brady celebrates with Gisele Bundchen after winning the Super Bowl at Raymond James Stadium on February 7, 2021 in Tampa, Florida. (Mike Ehrman/Getty Images)
“My wife is my biggest supporter. It’s hard for her to see me get hit. She deserves what she needs from me as a husband and my kids deserve what they need from me as a father,” Brady told host Jim Gray at the time. “We think we’re going to live forever, but we’re not. We think we’re going to play forever, but we’re not.”
Then, just 40 days after announcing his retirement in February of that year, he revealed he would play one more season with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Bündchen, the mother of two of his three children, filed for divorce later that year.
Tom Brady roast ‘impacted’ her kids, Gisele Bundchen ‘deeply disappointed’, reports say
Brady and Bündchen’s divorce became the subject of a very personal diatribe in May on Netflix, where comedians Nikki Glaser and Kevin Hart joked about Brady and Bündchen’s divorce and touched on rumors of an affair she had with her jiu-jitsu teacher while she was still married to Brady.
Nikki Glaser delivers scathing criticism of Tom Brady. (Getty Images)
Brady later said he had no plans to do another roast because of how the incident affected his children.
“I didn’t like the impact it had on my kids,” Brady told former NFL players Ryan Clark, Fred Taylor and Channing Crowder on the “Pivot Podcast” on May 15.
“So that’s the hardest part of the bittersweet aspect of doing something you think is right and then suddenly realizing you’ll never do it again because of the impact it had on the people you care about most. … Like I said, I was happy that people were making fun of me when I signed it.”
Former New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady stands with his daughter Vivian during a ceremony honoring Brady at halftime of the New England vs. Philadelphia Eagles game at Gillette Stadium on September 10, 2023 in Foxborough, Massachusetts. (Maddy Meyer/Getty Images)
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Brady declined to say which jokes affected the kids.
Benajim and Vivian are Bündchen’s children. Jack (real name John “Jack” Edward Thomas Moynahan) is Brady’s son from a previous relationship with actress Bridget Moynahan.
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