Although Tom Brady continues to keep his private life private, more outlets are running with the report that he and Gisele Bündchen are having marital issues, a rumor Dan Le Batard isn’t comfortable covering.
“I’ve, throughout his career, marveled at Tom Brady’s ability to keep all things private,” Le Batard said on his Wednesday show. “With that level of fame, we don’t allow you to make those choices. We are invasive. And TMZ and others are now very comfortable reporting gossip about his marriage. I don’t know what’s true, what’s not true. What I immediately assumed when he had 11 days is off is that there was emergency stuff that needed to be tended to.”
From a sports media standpoint, the 11 days off provided hosts and analysts with the opportunity to cast doubt over Brady’s ability to remain an elite quarterback at 45 years old. For years, people have been burned by predicting the end of Brady’s career, but the strange hiatus presented sports media members the ability to question his commitment to football, something that has never been able to be doubted over the last two decades.
It was fun to mock Brady for his 11 days off when we thought it may have been to appear as a contestant on Fox’s The Masked Singer. While some of us are holding out hope of seeing Brady on the celebrity singing competition, TMZ and Page Six have festered rumors about the quarterback’s marriage.
“There are things that are allowed to be private,” Le Batard continued. “But we do not allow famous people to have their privacies. And while I don’t know what is going on in their marriage, there’s a lot of reporting that doesn’t feel very firm, that doesn’t feel very good. It doesn’t mean it’s wrong, but there’s reporting about big fights! And I really don’t know how to discuss the most prominent athlete in America, what’s going on in his marriage, what’s fair to discuss as soon as he takes the 11 days off.
Le Batard noted that he avoided talking about Tiger Woods and his marital issues years ago until there was a police report. Not that anyone expects a police report to come from the current Brady saga, but in the case of Woods, that’s when the legendary golfer’s private life turned public.
While personal issues can certainly impact a quarterback’s ability to focus on football, feeding into tabloid gossip by breaking down rumors of marital issues should remain out of bounds.
