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Inside Tom Brady and Irina Shayk’s Budding Romance: ‘He’s Obviously Smitten’
They couldn’t stop smiling at each other. While stopped at a traffic light in his car during a July drive in LA, Tom Brady caressed Irina Shayk’s face as she gazed into his eyes. “He’s obviously smitten,” says a source, noting that the retired football star had had his first date with the NYC-based model the night before, and it ended with them going back to his house and her spending the night. “He was driving her back to the Hotel Bel-Air, where she was staying.”
The pair first connected at billionaire Joe Nahmad’s star-studded $13 million nuptials to model Madison Headrick in Sardinia, Italy, in May. “The wedding was crawling with A-listers, but Irina made a beeline for Tom. She made the first move and pretty much seduced him — not that he wasn’t willing!”
Irina was on a mission. “She goes after what she wants, and she didn’t let him out of her sight at the wedding. Everyone was saying she basically threw herself at him,” says an insider source, though at the time Irina’s manager denied the claims, calling them “totally fictional.”
As it turns out, the attraction between the supermodel, 37, and the G.O.A.T., 46, is very real. “It’s no secret he loves a supermodel,” the source notes of Tom, who finalized his divorce from Gisele Bündchen in October after 13 years of marriage. Tom and Irina started talking after the wedding, “and he invited her to come visit him in LA because he couldn’t stop thinking about her,” says the source. “She’s exotic in ways that differ from Gisele. He finds her gorgeous, of course, but she’s also wild and unpredictable and makes him feel like he’s living life, not just going through the motions.”
Tom broke the news to Gisele right after his and Irina’s hotel rendezvous. “He wanted to tell her himself because she obviously knows Irina from the modeling world,” says the source. Gisele, who’s been frequently spotted getting close with her good friend and jiujitsu instructor Joaquim Valente since becoming single, “has moved on from the marriage, but she was still shocked and a little annoyed. She would never date one of his former teammates, and that’s what this feels like. Gisele and Irina were friendly to each other, but there was always a competitiveness in their business, so the remnants of a rivalry still linger.”
Irina also has a bit of a reputation. “She definitely gravitates toward powerful, high-profile men,” says the source. The Russian native dated soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo from 2010 to 2015 before hooking up with Bradley Cooper that same year. Their four-year romance produced daughter Lea, 6. Irina was also spotted getting cozy with Heidi Klum’s ex Vito Schnabel in 2020, and on a getaway with Kanye West in 2021, shortly after his split from Kim Kardashian. . But Tom is truly the G.O.A.T., adds the source: “Rich, famous, handsome — she’s telling friends that he checks all the boxes for her. And she can’t keep her hands off him!”
For his part, Bradley “is happy for Irina,” says another insider, noting that Tom — father to Jack, 15 (with ex Bridget Moynahan), and Benjamin, 13, and Vivian, 10 (with Gisele) — “is a stable guy. Bradley’s main concern is their daughter, so he thinks Tom is a far better choice than some of Irina’s other exes. Still, he doesn’t think Lea should meet Tom until it becomes serious, and
he’s not convinced this will last.”
Others think they make the perfect couple. “They’re both successful and gorgeous,” says the source, “and their chemistry is off the charts.”
And while Tom was planning to “live it up” as the world’s most eligible bachelor after the end of his long marriage, the source says that those close to the football legend think “he’s better when he’s in a relationship. And they’re convinced this one could go the distance.”
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