How Leonardo DiCaprio's Lifestyle Destroyed His Romance With Gisele Bündchen The List
Leonardo DiCaprio and Gisele Bundchen were together for five years before the supermodel realized they were growing in very different directions.
By Jan. 14, 2025 7:00 am EST
Superstar actor Leonardo DiCaprio is known for his short-term relationships with women who are usually much younger than he is. However, some pop culture fans may have forgotten that the "Wolf of Wall Street" star once dated world-renowned model Gisele Bündchen, who was once one of the world's top models. DiCaprio and Bündchen were romantically involved from 2000 to 2005. Bündchen was reportedly just 18 when she started seeing DiCaprio, while the famous actor was 24 years old at the time.
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It could be easy to believe that DiCaprio was the person who ended the romance, but this was not actually the case. Bündchen, who has a surprising untold truth, revealed in her tell-all book "Lessons: My Path to a Meaningful Life" that it was actually she who ended the relationship. Bündchen started to figure out who she really was and what she really wanted from life in her 20s, and she realized that DiCaprio, who was a heavy partier, may not be the best partner for her throughout her journey of self-healing.
While the relationship ended after five years, Bündchen had nothing but positive feelings for the Oscar-winning actor while speaking with Vanity Fair in 2009. "We know what we had; we were very young, and we grew together in a lot of ways," Bündchen told the outlet. "We were just not meant to be boyfriend and girlfriend, but I respect him enormously, and I wish him nothing but the best."
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During an interview with Porter, Gisele Bündchen talked about how her self-help book, "Lessons: My Path to a Meaningful Life," describes a time in her life when she wasn't happy with the path she was on. Bündchen told the outlet that she suffered from anxiety for quite some time, but wasn't comfortable with acknowledging her issues with her mental health. "When I was going through my panic attacks, I didn't even feel like I could share with anyone," Bündchen told the outlet. "I thought maybe I don't have the right, everybody is going through so many difficult things in the world, and I don't have the right to feel this way. So I'd suppress it, and the more I suppressed it, the bigger it became."
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Soon, Bündchen realized that the lifestyle that she lived with her then-partner Leonardo DiCaprio was part of the problem. In her book, Bündchen revealed that as she started to work on herself, she realized DiCaprio was happy with his life the way it was. "No longer numbing myself with smoking, drinking and too much work, I was becoming more and more aware of things that I'd chosen not to look at," Bündchen wrote. "Was I alone in wanting to do some serious soul-searching while he stayed the same? In the end, unfortunately, the answer was yes." After dating DiCaprio, Bündchen married star football quarterback Tom Brady, before the two divorced in 2022.