Tom Brady has claimed that the media “mischaracterised” his relationship with Donald Trump after he once called the former president “a good friend” and was spotted with a MAGA hat in his football locker.
The NFL legend told Variety in an interview published on Thursday that the two men haven’t spoken in “a lot of years” and that he was “so young” when he used to golf with Mr Trump.
“I haven’t talked to him in a lot of years,” he said. “I think [the press] just mischaracterised a lot.”
As a rising star in the NFL in the 2000s, Mr Brady said he thought it was the “coolest thing in the world” to became golf buddies with Mr Trump.
“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.”
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback made vague comments around his thoughts about the former president today, saying that he wouldn’t want to “point out anyone else’s flaws” because his personality “isn’t ever to insult anybody”.
“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,” he said.
“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.”
Mr Brady appeared to stop short of clearing up whether or not he now supports Mr Trump in his political career – a question that has loomed over the 44-year-old for several years.
The quarterback’s political stance first fell under close scrutiny back in 2015 when a photo emerged of a MAGA hat inside his locker. At the time, Mr Brady said that Mr Trump had personally sent it to him and that it had “found its way to my locker”.
He said how the now-76-year-old would call him up and give him “different types of motivational speeches at different times”.
The football star went on to appear to endorse Mr Trump in the 2016 election, saying it would “be great” if he became the next president.
“I hope so. That would be great. There’d be a putting green on the White House lawn. I know that,” he said when asked if he thought Mr Trump had a chance of winning the election.
Mr Brady appeared to walk back his comments in a 2020 interview with Howard Stern where he said his relationship with Mr Trump made him feel “uncomfortable” in the run-up to the 2016 election.
“You can’t undo things, not that I would undo a friendship, but political support is a lot different than the support of a friend,” he told Mr Stern.
The two men first struck up a friendship in the early 2000s when Mr Trump invited Mr Brady to judge a Miss USA competition with him.
The quarterback, who had just won his first Super Bowl with the New England Patriots, said that at the time he thought that was “the coolest thing in the world”.
After that, Mr Trump would invite him to play golf with him and would come and support him at games.
“[Mr Trump] would stand on the sideline and would cheer for the Patriots… He always had a way of connecting with people and still does,” Mr Brady said.
