In Interview With Oprah, Tom Brady Tackles Kneeling During Anthem, Spirituality, Relationship With Gisele
By Michael Hurley, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- Tom Brady sat down for an interview with Oprah Winfrey, and it's a conversation that involves some topics that generally don't get covered in Brady's usual press conferences at Gillette Stadium.
The Oprah Winfrey Network released a series of clips from the interview, which will air in its entirety on Sunday at 11 a.m., in which Brady is asked questions that run the gamut from his personal life to his spiritual beliefs.
Perhaps the discussion most relevant to the sports world involved the matter of players kneeling during the national anthem. It was an issue that really jumped to the forefront of American consciousness last year, after President Donald Trump spoke out against players who had taken knee. Following those comments, the number of players who went to a knee during the national anthem increased significantly.
Given that Brady has discussed his friendship with Trump in the past, his comments on the matter will be considered by many to be interesting, even though they're very much in line with what he said last year.
Watch A Clip Of Brady's Comments Below
"I think there were a lot of good, healthy conversations coming out of it in our locker room," Brady told Oprah. "The great part about sports are the relationships, and I've been in it for a long time. I've been with guys from all different parts of the country. Every color, race, belief. And you know what? You respect what other people -- I do, I respect why people are doing what they're doing. And they're doing it for different reasons. And that's OK. You can do things for your reasons, they can do things for their reasons, and you have respect for that. But I thought it was great."
Oprah asked Brady if healthy conversations did take place in Foxboro.
"Yeah we had meetings after practice, talking about how we wanted to deal with that particular situation in time, taking a knee," Brady said. "We chose to lock arms and we put arms around each other. We support what people are going through. I've been playing sports long enough -- everyone comes from something different. I think showing respect for everybody is -- in a locker room with a team with guys trying to go in the same direction, you better have that empathy. That's what sports are all about."
Considering that Brady's marriage to world-famous supermodel Gisele Bundchen is always drawing attention, Oprah asked Brady to go deep on his relationship.
"I just love having to come home to someone that engages me every night. She makes me laugh, oh my God," Brady said. "Just, in some ways we're different, and in some ways we're so similar. She flies in the sky, she's so creative. And I'm very rooted. So she stretches me in ways that without her I couldn't be stretched. And I think I keep her, in some ways, in my belief -- I know she's here -- but I keep her just close enough where she doesn't go so far, you know? She knows I'm kind of, she can always count on me, and I know I can always count on her. But we do have the values from our family that I think our moms and dads both did a great job."
Brady also engaged in some spiritual philosophizing about life in general.
"Well I think I have, you know, curiosities in many ways. I think a lot of it is learning, and loving to learn," Brady said. "And I think since I was a kid, just loving the experience of learning new things, learning how they impact my life, learning how they impact my relationships. My wife would say we're spiritual beings having a human experience. It's great, and it's so true. I just, I want to live a great, impactful, purposeful life, and I want to impact people from the lessons I've learned and see if people can learn anything and relate it in their life."
UPDATE: You can read more detailed comments from Brady in his interview with Oprah here.