Football was not the reason Gisele Bündchen and Tom Brady got a divorce, the supermodel told Vanity Fair.

Gisele, 42, said the public talk about her divorce from Brady, 45, was “very hurtful.”

“I have always cheered for him, and I would continue forever,” she said. “If there’s one person I want to be the happiest in the world, it’s him, believe me. I want him to achieve and to conquer. I want all his dreams to come true. That’s what I want, really, from the bottom of my heart.”

Calling the divorce “like a death and a rebirth,” Bündchen downplayed Brady’s football career as the reason why the two split.

“Sometimes you grow together; sometimes you grow apart,” she explained. “When I was 26 years old and he was 29 years old, we met, we wanted a family, we wanted things together.

“As time goes by, we realize that we just wanted different things, and now we have a choice to make. That doesn’t mean you don’t love the person. It just means that in order for you to be authentic and truly live the life that you want to live, you have to have somebody who can meet you in the middle, right? It’s a dance. It’s a balance.”

They wanted different things, she said, but added she “loved” watching him play football.

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Mark Heim is a sports reporter for The Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Mark_Heim.