Gisele Bündchen has given a rare and candid interview about welcoming her third child at 44, reflecting on how motherhood later in life has reshaped her priorities, her definition of success, and the way she now approaches her modelling career.
Gisele Bündchen has offered fans a rare glimpse into her personal life, speaking openly about becoming a mother in her forties in a new interview with i-D magazine, published as part of the title’s Mother Issue on Thursday. The Brazilian model, 46, welcomed her third child, a baby boy, with husband Joaquim Valente, 38, when she was 44. “Having a baby at this moment of my life is such a gift, because I’m in a different place,” she told the magazine. “I don’t have anything to prove. I don’t feel like I really, quite frankly, care.”
A new sense of freedom
Bündchen said she now feels liberated from the pressure of external judgement. “I feel like I get to choose how I want to live my life,” she explained, adding that she is “not defined by other people’s opinions.” That sense of freedom extends to her professional choices: Bündchen, who also shares son Benjamin, 16, and daughter Vivian, 13, with ex-husband Tom Brady, 49, said she now turns down “99 percent” of the work she is offered in order to prioritise time with her family. “When I put it on the scale, I’m like, ‘Am I going to miss my daughter’s volleyball game? Am I going to miss going to the park with my son? Am I going to miss my son DJing?'”
From a gruelling career to a quieter life
The interview also offers a striking picture of the pace Bündchen maintained during the peak of her modelling career, when she says she worked around 360 days a year, a period she described as essentially a “rat race.” Her current lifestyle stands in sharp contrast: she deliberately keeps a much lighter schedule and rarely leaves Florida, apart from occasional trips to her home in Costa Rica, visits to family in Brazil, and a recent trip to Tahiti. Her move to Florida followed a decade spent living in Boston, and was partly driven by a desire to create a different environment for co-parenting her older children.
Bündchen has also changed how she manages technology day to day, saying her phone now stays on silent and that she no longer uses alarms, an approach she described as liberating and part of a broader effort to remain present rather than constantly responding to outside demands.
A redefined idea of success
One of the central themes running through the interview is how fundamentally Bündchen’s definition of success has shifted. Rather than measuring achievement through money, fame or power, she now weighs success against being able to spend time with her children, have food on the table, maintain a home, nurture good relationships, and genuinely enjoy each day.
She said having children allows adults to experience the world anew through them, since children notice and grow excited by things adults can become accustomed to overlooking. She spoke in particular about watching her youngest son develop his own personality, rather than viewing motherhood purely as another responsibility to manage. Ultimately, Bündchen said she hopes her children will remember her primarily as a good mother who helped them become the best versions of themselves, rather than for her modelling achievements, while stressing that she continues to work on her own personal growth, which she does not see as something that stops with motherhood.
Still active, but selective
Despite stepping back significantly, Bündchen has not retired from modelling altogether. While she turns down the vast majority of offers she receives, she continues to accept selected commercial and fashion projects, including recent work connected to brands such as Marc O’Polo, and continues to appear on major fashion magazine covers. The September 2026 i-D cover marks her seventh appearance for the title, with the accompanying shoot photographed by Collier Schorr as part of a Mother Issue that produced multiple cover variations.
Bündchen also maintains a serious fitness routine at 46, combining weight training, yoga, Pilates and jiu-jitsu, a regime she says her youngest son has begun imitating, something she finds amusing.
Background on her youngest child and marriage
Bündchen’s youngest child was born in early 2025, when she was 44, with the birth first reported that February and subsequent reporting confirming the baby was a boy. She and Valente went on to marry in December 2025. In the months following the birth, Bündchen had largely kept details of the baby’s life private; in May 2025, she shared a rare image with her newborn around Mother’s Day, explaining at the time that some of life’s most beautiful moments are not meant to be shared publicly, but simply lived. Her latest i-D interview marks a notable shift, offering considerably more insight into how motherhood has reshaped her life than she had previously given.
Bündchen’s relationship with Valente began through jiu-jitsu, with Valente initially serving as her instructor. She first connected with the Valente brothers’ Miami academy after enrolling her son in lessons, before eventually beginning to train there herself. The couple’s relationship became public in 2023, ahead of their marriage in December 2025.
