Gisele Caroline Bündchen(Portuguese pronunciation: [ʒiˈzɛli ˈbĩtʃẽ]; born 20 July 1980is a Brazilian Supermodel, film actress and goodwill ambassador for the UN Environment Programme.
In the late 1990s, Bündchen became one of the first in a wave of Brazilian models to find success. In 1999, Vogue magazine dubbed her “The Return of the Sexy Model” and she was credited with ending the “heroin chic” era of modeling.
Bündchen was one of Victoria’s Secret Angels from 2000 until 2006. Since 2004, she has been the highest-paid model in the world and the sixteenth richest woman in the entertainment industry with an estimated $150 million fortune. Models Claudia Schiffer and Naomi Campbell have argued that Bündchen is the only true remaining “supermodel” and according to Forbes she may become the first ever billionaire supermodel.
Gisele Bündchen was born in the Brazilian town of Três de Maio and grew up in Horizontina, Rio Grande do Sul, to Vânia Nonnenmacher, a bank clerk pensioner, and Valdir Bündchen, a university teacher and writer. She has five sisters — Raquel, Graziela, Gabriela, Rafaela and her fraternal twin Patrícia, Gisele’s junior by five minutes. Bündchen was raised as a Roman Catholic, speaks Portuguese as her native language and English as a second language.
She is from Southern Brazil, a region whose population is largely composed of Brazilians of German descent. Bündchen is of distant German ancestry from both sides of her family: her great-great-grandparents immigrated to Brazil from Germany. In regards to her ethnic background, Bündchen said:
“I was born in Horizontina, a town in the backcountry of (Brazilian) state Rio Grande do Sul. The town was once mainly colonized by Germans. In the school which I attended, learning German was actually obligatory from third grade on. But being out of touch with the language for such a long time, I unfortunately forgot it. […] I belong to the sixth generation of my family in Brazil.”Originally, Bündchen wanted to be a professional volleyball player and considered playing for the Brazilian team, Sogipa. While in school, Bündchen was so thin that her friends used to call her “Olívia Palito” (Portuguese for Olive Oyl, Popeye’s skinny girlfriend) and “Saracura” (a type of Brazilian shorebird).
In 1993, a then-13-year-old Bündchen joined a modeling course with her sisters Patrícia and Gabriela at her mother’s insistence. The following year, Bündchen went to São Paulo on a school excursion to give them an opportunity to walk in a big city. In a shopping mall, while eating a Big Mac with her friends, Bündchen was discovered by a modeling agency. She was subsequently selected for a national contest, Elite Look of the Year, in which she placed second — Claudia Menezes, from Bahia, took first place. Bündchen placed fourth in the world contest, held in Ibiza, Spain. In 1996, Bündchen moved to New York City to begin her modeling career, debuting at Fashion Week.
On Thursday, February 26, 2009 Bündchen married New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady in a small Catholic ceremony in Los Angeles. On April 5, 2009 the couple remarried in Costa Rica
On June 19, 2009, People magazine reported that Gisele was pregnant with her first child with Brady, and that the baby was due in December.
Gisele gave birth to a baby boy on December 8th, 2009. She later posted a message on her website declaring, that they had named their son Benjamin. On December 5, 2013 Gisele gave birth to a baby girl, supermodel’s second child with Tom Brady was called Vivian Lake Brady. “We feel so lucky to have been able to experience the miracle of birth once again and are forever grateful for the opportunity to be the parents of another little angel,” – Gisele wrote on her Facebook page.