In a new interview with Variety, soon-to-be-45-year-old Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady touched on a number of typically off-limits topics, including his relationship with former President Donald Trump.
Or, if you take Brady at his word, their non-relationship.
Brady — who was famously photographed with a “Make America Great Again” hat in his locker back in September 2015, and said he was “friends” with Trump and that the former reality star was “a hell of a lot of fun to play golf with” — told Variety’s Ramin Setoodeh that his relationship with the 76-year-old golf course owner had been “mischaracterized” by the media and that the two have not spoken to one another “in a lot of years.”
“I think they just mischaracterized a lot,” Brady told Variety. “And my personality isn’t ever one to insult anybody. I have plenty of my own flaws. I’m not here to point out anyone else’s flaws. There are things that I agree with. There are things that I don’t. There are things I agree with my wife about. There are things that I don’t. I love her to death, but we don’t always see eye to eye. I don’t see eye to eye with anyone. And I’m not responsible for what other people say. I’m really responsible for what I say. So if people want to say things that I said or that I’m about, that’s up to them, and I’m not going to respond to all those things all the time either.”
Responding to a question about golfing with Trump, Brady chose to go with a vague answer. “This was 17 or 18 years ago,” he said. “I was so young. I got to go to a private golf course. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world.” (He would’ve been 27 about 17 or 18 years ago, so not really that young, but who’s counting?)
The seven-time Super Bowl winner, who also said there could “absolutely” be an openly gay quarterback in the NFL at some point, has never publicly supported Trump politically and did skip visiting the White House with the Patriots while he was in office. (Brady also declined to visit when Barack Obama was Commander in Chief.) He also previously said that the MAGA hat in his locker was not an endorsement of his golf buddy. “Political support is a lot different than the support of a friend,” Brady said in 2020.
The fact that Brady even answered questions about Trump is somewhat telling and it is interesting that he chose to do so via a publication like Variety. Does it have anything to do with his fledgling media company and a desire to curry favor with potential viewers for his upcoming Jane Fonda joint 80 for Brady? Probably apolitical to a fault, Brady likely wants to right himself with the left. After all, to paraphrase Michael Jordan, Democrats buy sneakers, too.
Whatever Brady’s reason for waiting until July of 2022 to distance himself from Trump, it isn’t for a foray into politics. ” I don’t think anyone’s fond of politics these days,” he said. Nailed that one, Tommy.
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