Gisele Bündchen reveals she had suicidal thoughts at the peak of her modelling days
Gisele Bundchen
Gisele Bündchen, supermodel and ex-wife of American football icon Tom Brady, has opened up about battling anxiety and thoughts of suicide at the peak of stardom.
"Everybody looked at me from the outside and thought I had it all, right?" Bündchen said during an interview with CBS Sunday Mornings. "And I was feeling like I was living this life that was just, like ..."
Host Lee Cowan suggested, "Killing you?" to which Bündchen replied, "Exactly. You know, drinking mocha frappuccinos for breakfast with three cigarettes; drinking a bottle of wine at night to calm down from all the coffee I was drinking. Not sleeping and traveling and working. "
"I basically burned out my adrenal glands and my nervous system couldn't take it anymore. I felt bad about it, I felt like I couldn't tell people that because they looked at me and they're like, She has everything. Like, they wouldn't even understand."
Bündchen, 43, was discovered in a mall when she was 14, and soon became one of the most coveted faces on the ramp after moving from her hometown in Brazil to the US.
Cowan asked, "How did the anxiety start to present itself?"
"You know, I was in tunnels; I couldn't breathe," Bündchen said. "And then, I started being in studios, and I felt, like, suffocated. I lived on the 9th floor, and I had to go up the stairs because I was afraid I would be stuck on the elevator, and I'd be hyperventilating. Because you know, when you can't breathe even when the windows are open, you feel like, I don't want to live like this."
When she was asked if she really thought of jumping, Bundghen said, "Yeah. For, like, a second, because you're like, I can't."
The model, however, saidshe took control and went into a complete detox. Gisele eliminated caffeine, sugar and alcohol from her routine and began meditating daily.
"I wake up at five," she said. "Yeah, I like to wake up early, I like to greet the sun. You know, sometimes you're tired and you're like, 'Okay, I'm just going to sleep in a little bit,' but I feel a difference when I do that."
She recalled she met her ex-husband Tom Brady soon after she adapted the new lifestyle. The pair knew each other for 16 years and was married for 13 before they announced their divorce.
"I look into my life, and I wouldn't have it any other way," she said. "I wouldn't have any other life. I wouldn't have done it. If they say, can you change something in your life? I wouldn't change absolutely anything."
Tom and Gisele confirmed their divorce in October 2022 after 13 years of marriage.
Gisele told "CBS News Sunday Morning" that their decision to divorce was "not what I dreamed of and what I hoped for."
Gisele added, "My parents have been married for 50 years, and I really wanted that to happen. But I think you have to accept, you know, sometimes that the way you are in your 20s, it's sometimes you grow together, sometimes you grow apart. I mean, he's the father of my kids, you know? So, I always wish him the best, and I'm so grateful that he gave me wonderful children."
Tom and Gisele share a son Benjamin Rein, 13, and a daughter Vivian Lake, 10.
