It's a team effort. While Tom Brady is an MVP on the football field, Gisele Bündchen says she's captain of the family they built together.
Gisele, 41, graces the cover of British Vogue's June issue, published on May 18. In the accompanying interview, the supermodel got candid about how she makes her relationship with the NFL star work.
"I don't think relationships just happen," she said. "It's never the fairy tale people want to believe it is."
Gisele admitted that "it takes work to be really in sync with someone" and said this is especially true after you have kids. The couple has been married since 2009 and share daughter Vivian Lake, 9, and son Benjamin Rein, 12, as well as John "Jack" Edward, 14, Tom's son with ex-girlfriend Bridget Moynahan.
"His focus is on his career, mine is mostly on the kids. And I'm very grateful that he lets me take the reins when it comes to our family. He trusts my decisions," she explained.
Except in one case. During the interview, Gisele confessed that Tom, 44, wasn't initially supportive of her idea to have a home birth with their son Benjamin.
"He was like, ‘You're not going to do that, because you're going to die,'" she recalled of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback.
Gisele, however, wasn't willing to back down. She persuaded Tom to watch several videos on home birthing before he eventually gave in.
"I made it clear that this is my body and I'm going to decide how I give birth," she noted.
The family moved from Boston to Tampa Bay when Tom joined the Buccaneers in 2020. Last February, the quarterback announced his retirement with much fanfare. But just weeks later, he reversed his decision, announcing he would play another season.
Gisele said that after Tom changed his mind about retiring, she decided to homeschool their children.
She explained: "When my husband decided he was going to play another year, I didn't want to put them in a school, because it takes a lot to adapt to a new town. They left all their friends in Boston – and just look at what the world was going through. I needed to create a soft landing."