People have been saying some uncharitable things about Tom Brady these past couple weeks — like, for example, his supermodel wife, Gisele Bündchen, should dump him (that was me), and that the split would basically be his fault for prioritizing a brain-damaging sport over his family for so long (also me), and that he has no friends (Gawker, based on reports that all the couple’s mutuals had taken Gisele’s side in their seemingly imminent divorce). But now, a headline in the New York Times challenges the notion of Brady’s alleged life as an island. According to the paper of record, Brady does appear to have at least one friend: Florida governor Ron DeSantis, with whom he is on “texting terms.”
Per the Times, the disclosure came via Tim Michels, the Republican running to be governor of Wisconsin, who bragged during a campaign event — a meeting of the far-right Lake Country Patriots — that he took DeSantis to a Green Bay Packers game last month. The Times was not allowed into the gathering but listened to a recording in which Michels told the crowd how DeSantis “had never been to Lambeau Field before and he wanted to go.” Michels went on to say that he looked over at his comrade during the game, “and he’s texting and he says, ‘How do you spell Lambeau?’” Michels says he then asked whom the governor was texting with, and “he says, ‘I’m texting with Tom Brady.’ The governor of Florida gets to text with Tom Brady.” How the name-dropping might have been germane to Michels’s remarks isn’t immediately clear, but if Michels is telling the truth (and I don’t see why he wouldn’t; there is no reason to bring this up, let alone make it up), then Brady and DeSantis sit on their phones and just tap tap tap, lol lol rofl, if not all day every day, then at least some of the time.
Chilling, though not necessarily surprising. Brady counted Trump among his good buddies for years, meaning that the former president may be rampaging right now: He reportedly hates DeSantis, a monster of his own making. Anyway, it’s not clear what the Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback and his governor chat about — maybe DeSantis shipping dozens of migrants from Texas to Massachusetts as props for a political stunt, or maybe just football — but let’s not begrudge this guy one pal. The rest of his circle is reportedly “upset” with him for “refusing to bend” on the un-retiring thing. If Gisele gets Gronk (to name one hypothetical example — Gronk’s allegiances remain a mystery), then Brady gets DeSantis. It’s not only fair; maybe it’s also deserved?
