Key Takeaways

  • A new Tom Brady biography claims his “True Love” Instagram post was a quiet jab at Gisele Bündchen, posted a month after she had her first child with her now-husband.
  • The book also says Bündchen handed Brady a handwritten letter after the Patriots’ Super Bowl LII loss, asking him to actually be home.
  • Strip away the tabloid packaging and this is just two people who wanted different lives, and one of them finally said it out loud.

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I don’t usually care about celebrity divorce books. Most of them are recycled tabloid quotes dressed up with a hardcover and a book tour. But Lars Anderson’s new biography, Brady: An American Story and the Price of Greatness, drops September 29 and it’s already got two details that made me stop scrolling. One is a handwritten letter. The other is an Instagram caption that apparently meant a lot more than “True Love.”

Here’s what’s actually in it, and here’s my problem with how everybody’s framing it.

The “Softest Middle Finger” Instagram Post

About a month after Gisele Bündchen gave birth to her first child with her boyfriend Joaquim Valente in February 2025, Brady posted a photo from a football game with the caption “True Love.” According to the book, that wasn’t a coincidence. One of Brady’s acquaintances is quoted calling it “the softest middle finger,” a quiet reference to the thing that actually broke up their marriage. Not another woman, not money. Football, and Brady’s refusal to walk away from it when Gisele needed him to.

That’s a wild thing to put in a caption if it’s true. You just had a kid with someone new and your ex-husband posts a football picture captioned “True Love” a few weeks later. That’s not subtle, that’s a shot fired with a smile on it.

The Letter After the Super Bowl Loss

The more interesting reveal is older and sadder. After the Patriots lost Super Bowl LII in 2018, Bündchen reportedly handed Brady a handwritten note. She told him the marriage wasn’t working, that she needed him home more, off his phone, actually present for their kids. She wanted mornings where she could sleep in. She wanted room to build her own career instead of organizing her entire life around his schedule, which, by the way, a former teammate points out she was the bigger international star at that point. Brady reportedly kept the letter and reread it. He just didn’t change anything.

They tried counseling. It didn’t stick. They filed for divorce in October 2022 after 13 years together, and Bündchen married jiu-jitsu instructor Joaquim Valente in December 2025. You can read the full timeline of their marriage and divorce over at CBS Sports if you want the whole thing laid out year by year.

Gisele’s Astrology Excuse

The book also claims Bündchen eventually told Brady they were “not compatible,” and that she based part of that on astrology. I get why that’s the headline everyone’s running with, because it sounds a little out there coming from a supermodel. But read the letter part again. She told him exactly what she needed years before the divorce happened, in writing, and he kept playing football anyway. The astrology line is a footnote. The letter is the real story, and I think people are using the horoscope stuff to avoid sitting with how plain the actual reason was.

More on the “middle finger” claim and the book’s other details is in this write-up, if you want the full excerpt breakdown.

My Take

I’m not here to dunk on Brady. The guy is arguably the greatest to ever play football, and greatness at that level usually costs somebody something. Usually it’s family. Everybody already knew that in the abstract. What this book does is put an actual letter in your hands and make it specific. She asked for less phone, more mornings, more him. He gave her seven more rings’ worth of focus instead.

The “True Love” post bugs me more than the letter does, honestly. A letter written in a moment of pain is real and human. A caption posted for millions of followers, a month after your ex had a baby with someone else, read by a biographer as a coded jab? That’s a choice. If the book’s right about the intent, that’s not grief, that’s petty, and Brady’s usually smarter than petty.

I wrote something similar about the Jelly Roll and Bunnie XO split a while back, and the pattern holds again here. The tabloid headline is never the real story. The real story is always in the boring, specific detail nobody wants to lead with, like a handwritten note asking someone to just come home.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Tom Brady’s new book called?

It’s called Brady: An American Story and the Price of Greatness, written by Lars Anderson and releasing September 29, 2026.

What does the book claim about Tom Brady’s “True Love” Instagram post?

The biography claims Brady posted a football photo captioned “True Love” about a month after Gisele Bündchen had her first child with Joaquim Valente, and that an acquaintance described it as “the softest middle finger” aimed at his ex-wife.

Why did Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen get divorced?

According to the book, Bündchen handed Brady a handwritten letter after the Patriots’ Super Bowl LII loss in 2018 asking him to be more present at home. The couple tried counseling before divorcing in October 2022 after 13 years together.

Did Gisele Bündchen really leave a letter for Tom Brady?

Yes, per the book’s excerpt, she wrote him a note after the 2018 Super Bowl loss asking for more of his time and presence, and Brady reportedly kept the letter and reread it over the years.

Is Gisele Bündchen married again?

Yes. Bündchen married jiu-jitsu instructor Joaquim Valente in December 2025, and the two share a child together.