Gossip Girl: Gisele Does GQ

As a kid, you'd planned to become a professional volleyball player. Is this shared affinity for sports an important part of your relationship?

[softly and carefully] I think we have a lot of things in common, and I think he is a really great person. He really, genuinely doesn't have a bad bone in his body. And he is a very positive person.

After the Patriots lost the Super Bowl—and their chance at an undefeated season—you and Brady went on a lengthy tour of Latin America and Europe. Was he distraught about the loss?

All I have to say about that is that I was really proud of him. Winning eighteen games in a season, I think it's amazing. I mean, I'm talking for myself. I can't talk for him, okay?

You're a worldly supermodel; he's an athlete from San Mateo, California. Are you teaching him about things like Riesling and seviche and langoustines?

Your questions are funny. Look, all I'm saying—do you want some ChapStick?—is I'm not teaching anybody anything. Everybody learns from traveling. I think we all do. I really don't know how to answer that question, I'm sorry.

What you are to Vogue, Brady is to GQ, in a way. He's a regular in this magazine. He's also done some advertising work. My editor wondered if you've advised him at all in his modeling career.

Oh, my God. I want you to tell your editor that that's a very stupid question. It's private. And—nah.

In 2005 you told another interviewer that you'd never been proposed to. Is that still true?

Yeah, it's true.

In early 2007, when she was asked about women and eating disorders, Gisele said, "I never suffered from this problem because I had a very strong family base. Parents are responsible, not the fashion industry.' A s---storm ensued, with media across the globe condemning her for the icy hauteur of her remarks. "Excuse me," she'd said, "there are people born with the right genes for this profession."

Do you stand by those comments today?

If they have a problem, they have to talk to my parents. Because they're the ones who made me. Look, I've never met anyone who has it.

Really? In ten years in your industry, you've never crossed paths with anyone who—

Not that I've seen. I don't think it's something that people go around talking about. I do think what saved me is that I've been very athletic since I was very young. I think your body has muscle memory.

(In their willful obliviousness, her remarks remind me acutely of something, and after a minute I've got it: Talking with Gisele Bündchen about eating disorders is like talking with a pro athlete about steroids.)

This might sound like a bizarre question, but it seems to me that your photos express something very different from the photos of, say, Kate Moss. They're not very self-revealing. If they express any longing or need, it's for luxury goods.

[laughs] Because that's what they're selling!

I wondered if something deeper might be going on, though. Why do you never look vulnerable in photos? Do you consciously avoid this?

I think I am actually so much more that.