I am aware that as I am writing/ publishing this, legions of mothers around the world are getting their Weapons Grade Ghetto on and kicking some serious ass. So, as I inform you that Gisele Bundchen seems to be showing off about only gaining 30-pounds of baby-related weight, finding it super easy to shake it off afterward, I would like to publicly denounce any rioting. I also take no blame for any murders that take place in my name. That said, I’m child-free, and I feel like I need to jump up and high kick this chick in her (perfect) face, for the things she says about her experiences of being pregnant. Could her birth have been anymore annoyingly perfect? She is the star of Vogue’s cover, photo shoot, behind-the-scenes video, and enormously long interview; all are below.
Bundchen opens up about gaining so little baby weight, staying in shape during her pregnancy, birth, where her son was born, and going back to work.
- Benjamin [Brady], her son with husband Tom Brady, was born at their Boston penthouse last December, in warm water in a deep bathtub that overlooks the Charles River: “I wanted to experience the transformation,” Bundchen, 29, explains, squashing rumors that she gave birth at a Boston-area hospital.
- A friend from Brazil served as a mid-wife, and both her mother and Brady, 31, were present. Through the birth, she says she meditated: “It was the most amazing experience of my life, feeling him come through my body,” she says. “And once he was born, I never felt so empowered as looking at him and thinking, Oh, my God, we did it together!”
- Initially, she and Brady bickered over the baby’s name: “I wanted him to be called River because I wanted something always flowing, immortal,” she says. “My husband said, ‘There’s no way we’re going to call him River.’ But my father’s name is Reinoldo, so it’s a homage to him. And it’s like water.”
- During her pregnancy, she says she “gained only 30 pounds”; it wasn’t hard to get her pre-baby body back, especially since she exercised regularly right up until she gave birth: “I did kung fu up until two weeks before Benjamin was born, and yoga three days a week,” she says.
- Bundchen also says she was “mindful” about what she ate: “I think a lot of people get pregnant and decide they can turn into garbage disposals.”
- While expecting, Bundchen says she purposely stayed out of the public eye: “I felt like my pregnancy was a sacred moment for me … I didn’t work apart from the contracts I have, and then I only let them use my face.”
- Her reaction to going back to work, for an advertising client, shortly after the birth: “I got to the studio and I felt like I was E.T.. Whoa, what’s going on? Hair and makeup? I hadn’t looked at myself in a mirror for a month-and-a-half. I’d been in my house, in a cocoon with my kids, my husband, my dogs. Usually, as I walk through the door into that atmosphere, I already feel different. There’s a button that goes On and I’m On. And when I go On, there is almost no me; there is just a character who is doing all this. This time it wasn’t like that. I’ve been really inside with my husband and my baby, and everything is changed. But the client still deserves respect and professionalism, and I got a little bit concerned because I wasn’t feeling it. Makeup was done, hair was done, and I looked in the mirror and I still wasn’t seeing the person who’s a model. For the first time, I think I actually saw me, the inside, instead of the persona.”
Behind-the-scenes video for Gisele Bundchen in Vogue magazine April 2010.
[...] Gisele on Vogue cover, BFD – AG [...]
i too have no children, and her comments make me want to hurt her . Everybody’s body is different after birth, and exercising while pregnant doesn’t necessarily help take the baby weight away afterward. I just don’t like her whole “holier than though” tone that comes off in this interview.
Thanks for stopping by, kelly y0. Yes, that’s it. Her tone annoys me too. She’s pretty much this annoying with every interview she does.