Gisele Bündchen; Tom Brady.
Tom Brady picked up a surprising privacy trick from his ex-wife Gisele Bündchen, says the author of his biography, Lars Anderson
“It was a trick that he learned from Gisele,” says Anderson
Anderson’s book, Brady: An American Story and the Price of Greatness, delves into Brady’s childhood up through his NFL career
Tom Brady picked up a surprising trick for maintaining privacy from his ex-wife Gisele Bündchen, says Lars Anderson, the author of Brady: An American Story and the Price of Greatness.
Brady, 49, did not participate in Anderson’s detailed biography that chronicles the former quarterback’s journey to greatness on the field. The book also covers the demise of Brady and Bündchen’s 13-year marriage, an element Anderson felt was necessary “to really understand” the seven-time Super Bowl champ.
Anderson, who also wrote A Season in the Sun: The Inside Story of Bruce Arians, Tom Brady, and the Making of a Champion in 2021*,* tells PEOPLE his last conversation with Brady was a quick phone call before he even decided to write Brady.
Brady An American Story and the Price of Greatness book cover Author: Lars Anderson
‘Brady: An American Story and the Price of Greatness’.
“Tom and I exchanged text messages. We’re trying to get in touch with each other. I’ll never forget this. It was on my 50th birthday, April 5th, 2021, and I’m in my home office and I look out the window and I see my mom driving up, and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, I haven’t seen her in two years.’ Right at that moment, my cellphone lights up and it’s the name Tom Brady. I’m like, ‘You’ve got to be f---ing kidding me,’ ” Anderson recalls.
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The author says he faced a “moral dilemma” but ultimately told Brady he “can’t talk right now.”
Brady’s reaction “was wonderful,” recalls Anderson. “He just said, ‘Lars, go be with your family. We’ll get it done.’ It was just nice. It was just very nice. Well, that was the last time we ever spoke.”
Tom Brady poses backstage on Tuesday, March 17, 2026 at The Tonight Show
Tom Brady on March 17, 2026.
Brady and Anderson “never ended up hooking up,” but the author tells PEOPLE, “I subsequently learned as I was reporting this story that Tom changes his cell number all the time — it was a trick that he learned from Gisele.”
Bündchen, 46, and Brady finalized their divorce in October 2022 after 13 years of marriage. They share son Benjamin, 16, and daughter Vivian, 13, and Brady also shares son Jack, 19, with ex-girlfriend Bridget Moynahan.
Now four years later, Bündchen has no lingering negativity about their split, a source told PEOPLE last week.
“She always thought she would be married to Tom for the rest of her life,” the source shares. “The divorce was very upsetting, and she struggled to understand it at the time, but she’s not bitter.”
The source went on to say that Bündchen is “grateful for their children and the years they shared.”
“She’s very spiritual and looking back, she feels the universe had another plan for her,” the source adds.
Bündchen welcomed a son with her new husband, Joaquim Valente, in February 2025.