Publisher’s note: Jill Filipovic is a New York-based journalist and author of the book “OK Boomer, Let’s Talk: How My Generation Got Left Behind.” follow her on Twitter. The opinions presented in this note belong solely to its author.
(CNN) — You’ve probably heard by now that legendary NFL quarterback Tom Brady and supermodel Gisele Bündchen are divorcing. The media speculation machine is already in motion, and everyone wants to know why.
The guesses are understandable (I also want to know why a famous and beautiful couple break up after 13 years). And given the couple’s celebrity status, the meddling in a painful and personal moment for them is to be expected, even if it’s also quite rude and unkind.
But I suspect that the public’s fascination with the Brady-Bündchen divorce stems from the fact that this couple’s breakup reveals something to us about celebrities: It’s about two people who look nothing like us, but who, however, they seem to be separated by a familiar gender dynamic that we can imminently relate to.
Brady and Bündchen have occupied rare celebrity territory, in that they are both among the most recognizable people in America, but they are also seen more than heard. It’s true that they have occasionally appeared in the media, but their fame dates back to what seems like an increasingly bygone era of American celebrity: when people were famous for their incredible talent (or, in Bündchen’s case, for their incredible beauty and her intuitive sense for looking good on camera).
In our reality-saturated age, where some of America’s most famous people are TikTok teens and self-described “housewives,” and where the dominant scheme for becoming famous seems to be radically overexposing yourself online social, Brady and Bündchen have a much more dignified profile.
Frankly, we don’t know much about their day-to-day life (I had to Google how many kids they have), and what we do know: their diet without nightshades, Brady’s fake newspaper, their bedtime, are “celebrity” kind of details. : they are not like us” that make them fascinating and are halfway between aspiration and madness.
Brady’s apparent reputation as a political conservative and his previous friendship with former President Donald Trump threatened to lower him to the status of a mere mortal, at least among his more liberal fans, until he fended off Trump’s overtures to garner public support. Scandal was averted, and the Brady-Bündchen marriage retained its aura of perfection.
But their divorce could make them more earthy in the public mind. The general consensus among speculators seems to be that the problems arose when Brady announced that she was retiring, but then didn’t actually do so. Bündchen’s public comments indicate a concern for Brady’s health playing a dangerous sport and a desire, after years of sacrifice so he could prosper professionally, for him to spend more time with his family.
For many heterosexual couples, this dynamic is both familiar and frustrating. The woman who steps back to take care of the children and make sure her husband succeeds, and the husband who doesn’t seem to appreciate that sacrifice and continues to push himself professionally far beyond what is necessary, at the expense of her family. .
For much of the Brady-Bündchen marriage, both have been at the top of their respected fields: Bündchen is one of the most famous supermodels on the planet, and Brady may be the greatest quarterback of all time. But while Bündchen visibly changed her professional life when she had children, Brady did not.
“I deliberately stepped away from modeling in 2015, as I wanted to focus more on my family and personal projects,” Bündchen wrote in her memoir, “Lessons: My Path to a Meaningful Life.”
Of course, he did not stop working. But she did withdraw from the catwalks and focused more on photo shoots. She moved to Boston, not exactly a fashion hub, for Brady’s career, and then back to Florida. And it seems that while she was patient and hoped he would retire at a reasonable point in his career, she was also concerned about the toll football was taking on his body. “Obviously I have my concerns: this is a very violent sport, and I have my children and I would like him to be more present,” she told Elle magazine in September. “I’ve definitely had those conversations with him over and over again.”
Brady has also said that his wife has taken over most of the running of their lives so he can play the sport he loves, but that doesn’t seem to have changed his career decisions. “I think my wife, you know, has kept the house for a long time,” Brady said on his podcast last year. “And I think there are things that she wants to accomplish. You know, she hasn’t worked that hard in the last 10, 12 years, just raising our family and kind of committing to being in a life in Boston and then moving to Florida. But that it’s a problem, and it’s a very difficult issue to reconcile without saying, ‘Hey, it’s time to retire.’ kids”.
But Brady, unlike his wife, has continued full steam ahead. “I haven’t had a Christmas in 23 years and I haven’t had a Thanksgiving in 23 years,” she said on a recent episode of her podcast. “I haven’t celebrated the birthdays of people I care about who are born from August to the end of January. And I can’t be at funerals or weddings.” Last year, Brady said that she believes she is capable of playing until she is 50, at which point her oldest children (he also has a 15-year-old son with actress Bridget Moynahan) will no longer be children.
In her interview with Elle, Bündchen conveyed a sentiment that I imagine is familiar to many married straight women who have spent their 30s and 40s running the home front and supporting their husbands’ careers, only to see their children become independent. And they wonder, what’s next? “I’ve done my part, which is [estar] there for [Tom]Bündchen told Elle. “I moved to Boston and focused on creating a cocoon and loving environment for my children to grow up in and being there to support him and his dreams. Seeing my children succeed and become the beautiful human beings they are, seeing him succeed and fulfill himself in his career, makes me happy. At this point in my life, I feel like I’ve done a good job of that.”
But, he added: “I have a huge list of things that I have to do, that I want to do.”
When women experience this life stage change and questions of purpose come up, it can be a big transition for a family, and they need their husbands to step up for their aspirations, just as women often step up for their aspirations. step forward so that men can get what they want in life. Too often, however, this “give and take” is just a “take.”
We do not know what has happened behind closed doors in the Brady-Bündchen home. And it is unlikely that this divorce materialized overnight. Rather, like most marriage breakups, it’s likely the result of years of minor misalignments, disagreements, and resentments that eventually turned into a leaden lump of unhappiness that outweighed everything else.
But part of the human fascination with celebrities is the possibility of projection and aspiration. Celebrities end up being avatars of our own desires, jealousies, ambitions and insecurities. We don’t actually know why Bündchen and Brady split up, and probably never will; it is possible that each of them diagnoses different reasons for the end of their marriage. So what we take away from his public statements, and the narratives we cling to, tell us a little bit about his marriage, and a lot about the still unfinished business of American marriage equality.
