Tom Brady Made One Last Attempt to Save Marriage to Gisele Bundchen Before Divorce

For years, the final months of Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen's marriage have largely been told through what the public could see.

Brady retired. Then he changed his mind. Bündchen stopped attending games. By October 2022, one of sports' most famous marriages was over.

Now, a new account is filling in what reportedly happened behind closed doors, including an 11-day stretch when Brady stepped away from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and made a last-ditch effort to save his marriage.

The revelation comes from Lars Anderson's new book, "Brady: An American Story and the Price of Greatness," which details how badly the relationship had deteriorated by the summer of 2022 and what Brady reportedly did in an attempt to repair it.

It also casts one of the strangest episodes of Brady's final NFL season in an entirely different light.

Tom Brady Reportedly Left Training Camp for 11 Days to Save His Marriage

When Brady suddenly disappeared from Buccaneers training camp in August 2022, the team described the absence as a personal matter.

The quarterback ultimately missed 11 days.

According to the new account, Brady used that time to travel to a private resort in the Bahamas with Bündchen as the couple tried to work through their marriage.

"I've got to take care of some personal things," former Buccaneers quarterbacks coach Clyde Christensen recalled Brady telling him, according to an excerpt published by the Daily Mail.

The departure caught people around the team off guard.

"Tom didn't know what the heck was going on," an assistant coach recalled. "And we didn't know if he was ever coming back."

He did.

But according to Christensen, Brady returned to Tampa a noticeably different person.

"Tom was an empty shell of who he was when he got back," Christensen said. "There was no joy. Everything was hard work."

The getaway, according to the book, had not repaired the relationship.

Brady reportedly remained deeply affected by what was happening at home, with Anderson writing that some coaches and teammates privately remarked that the quarterback looked "like a cancer patient" during the difficult period.

Brady's NFL Comeback Reportedly Became a Major Breaking Point

The trouble did not begin with that August trip.

Brady had announced his retirement from the NFL in February 2022 after 22 seasons, seemingly closing one of the greatest careers in league history.

Forty days later, he reversed course.

According to the new account, that decision intensified existing tension between Brady and Bündchen.

After Brady led the New England Patriots to their sixth Super Bowl championship in February 2019, Bündchen had already made her feelings about his future clear.

Brady later recounted her reaction in the 2021 documentary "Man in the Arena."

"What more do you have to prove?" he recalled Bündchen asking him.

He kept playing.

Three years later, Brady briefly walked away, only to return for what would become his final season.

The new book describes an increasingly strained marriage as that season approached, with Bündchen reportedly feeling that Brady's football career continued to take precedence.

Yet even as the relationship deteriorated, Brady was reportedly still trying to hold onto it.

The book says he remained "utterly captivated by Gisele, still lost in the enchantment of her."

Inside the Final Months of Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen's Marriage

One episode from training camp reportedly drove home just how conflicted Brady had become about his decision to return.

During a July 28 practice, Brady's longtime center and close friend Ryan Jensen suffered a serious knee injury.

According to the book, Jensen screamed after going down, prompting Brady to run over and kneel beside him while the medical staff attended to the injury.

A Buccaneers staffer said the moment appeared to hit Brady hard.

"It was pretty clear he was asking himself, 'Why the F did I come back?'" the staffer recalled. "I think that's when he realized he'd made a horrible decision."

Weeks later came the 11-day absence and reported attempt to repair his marriage.

Brady returned to training camp Aug. 22 and played the 2022 season with Tampa Bay. Two months later, the chapter that had unfolded largely outside public view came to an end.

Brady and Bündchen announced their divorce on Oct. 28, 2022, after 13 years of marriage.

"We have grown apart and while it is, of course, difficult to go through something like this, I feel blessed for the time we had together and only wish the best for Tom always," Bündchen wrote at the time.

Nearly four years later, the newly reported details offer a much different picture of those final months.

Brady's unexplained 11-day absence wasn't simply happening alongside the collapse of his marriage, according to the book.

It was reportedly part of his attempt to save it.

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