It all started with a MAGA hat.
Seven years ago, Donald Trump’s infamous campaign slogan was spotted on a bright red cap in Tom Brady’s locker. That started a nearly year-and-a-half saga full of explanations and eventual disengagement — culminating in Brady abruptly ending a press conference when a reporter asked him about Trump’s vulgarity.
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At the onset of the 2016 presidential campaign, Brady spoke warmly about his time on the golf course with Trump, who also invited him to judge his Miss USA beauty pageant in 2002, just one month after a baby-faced Brady won his first Super Bowl.
“It’s pretty amazing what [Trump has] been able to accomplish,” Brady told WEEI in September 2015. “He obviously appeals to a lot of people, and he’s a hell of a lot of fun to play golf with.”
Around that time, Brady quipped it would be “great” if Trump won the presidency, because there would be a “putting green” on the White House lawn.
But since then, Brady has mostly been silent about his relationship with Trump. He broached the subject, and clarified the record, in a new cover story for Variety.
“I think [the press] just mischaracterized a lot,” Brady said. “And 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. 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.”
Brady also said he hasn’t spoken to Trump in “a lot of years.”
Those explanations jive with Brady’s description of their relationship to Howard Stern in April 2020. “You can’t undo things — not that I would undo a friendship — but the political support is totally different than the support of a friend,” Brady said.
Trump, for his part, routinely played up his relationships with Robert Kraft, Bill Belichick and Brady on the campaign trial. During Trump’s final rally before the 2016 election, he read aloud a fawning letter of support from Belichick.
Belichick is a regular presence at Mar-a-Lago, spotted there with Urban Meyer over Super Bowl Weekend.
Kraft remains a Trump confidante, and even flew on Air Force One.
When the Patriots visited the White House to celebrate their 2018 Super Bowl win, it’s apparent there was a fraying in Trump and Brady’s friendship. Brady’s decision to skip the ceremony reportedly upset Trump, who didn’t mention him in his speech that day.
It doesn’t seem like they’ve spoken since.