Tom Brady gave a sweet shout-out to his family while cementing his title as a New England Patriots legend.
Brady, 46, was officially inducted into the Patriots Hall of Fame during a ceremony at Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts on Wednesday, June 12, celebrating his legacy with the NFL team. As he reflected on the highs and lows of his career, Brady made sure his biggest fans — sons Jack, 16, and Benjamin, 14, and daughter Vivian, 11 — felt the love too.
“Your dad loves you more than anything in this world,” he gushed. “Your smiles outshine the morning sun. And where I live now, that’s a pretty brilliant sun.”
He continued, “There’s no greater joy than watching the three of you grow and teach me things on your way to becoming incredible young adults.”
Brady shares his eldest son with ex Bridget Moynahan, later welcoming Benjamin and Vivian with his ex-wife, Gisele Bündchen. He told the crowd on Wednesday that it was “good to be home,” noting that he felt “overwhelmed with gratitude” about the big honor.
“Relationships are built on shared experience, and the most meaningful things in my life are my relationships,” he said. “I wish I had more time. I wish I had more time to give you all. So, how do I sum up two decades in New England in one short speech? The answer is simple: You can’t.”
Brady spent 20 seasons as a Patriot, helping the team win their first-ever Super Bowl in 2007. With Brady as starting quarterback, the Patriots appeared in 13 AFC Championship Games — eight consecutive from 2011 to 2018 — and nine Super Bowls, winning six.
In 2020, Brady left the Patriots and joined the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, where he won his seventh Super Bowl trophy. He initially announced his retirement from the NFL in February 2022 but walked back his decision one month later, playing one final season with the Buccaneers. Brady officially said goodbye to pro football in February 2023.
“I love my family. I love my teammates. I love my friends. I love my coaches. I love football. I love you all,” he captioned his Instagram announcement. “I am truly grateful on this day. Thank you 🙏🏻❤️.”
Several months later, Brady exclusively gave Us Weekly a glimpse at how his priorities shifted post-retirement. “I think for me, how it looks going forward, I get to really think about and strategize and try to plan out to the best of my ability,” he told Us in June 2023. “[I’m really looking forward to] finding ways to go out there and challenge myself and try to do the best I could do with these different opportunities.”
At the time, Brady emphasized that he wanted to focus on “being with my kids and my family and traveling” before figuring out his next move professionally. (Brady and Bündchen, 43, announced their divorce in October 2022.)
Ahead of his Hall of Fame ceremony, Brady exclusively opened up to Us about settling into retirement.
“It’s just different,” he said on Wednesday while promoting his partnership with Hertz. “I mean, nothing’s going to replace the thrill of running out on the field in front of 70,000 people doing something that I love to do with a great group of teammates. So I was just certainly ready and it was just time for me to try something different.”
Brady enjoyed “every aspect” of his playing career, telling Us, “I loved my teammates. I love playing. I love the communities that really embraced me and they gave so much to me in my life and they’ve made my life so full and … I’m just grateful to everyone who played a part.”
