NFL legend Tom Brady revealed that while he enjoyed being the butt of the joke at a recent roast, he was bothered at how the show impacted his family.
With a debut of 2 million viewers in the first night, the “Tom Brady Roast” on Netflix was one of the most talked-about cultural moments in 2024. The star-studded event provided a plethora of edgy jokes that marked a return to real comedy for many Americans after political correctness had put a stranglehold on entertainment for so long.
The show was the most-watched program on Netflix for a week, with 13.8 million views.
Brady was recently asked about his biggest takeaway from the experience, given how so many jokes at his expense were circulated worldwide.
‘Every time I turn on “SportsCenter” I was like “are you f***ing kidding me?!” I just want to laugh.’
“I loved when the jokes were about me. I thought they were so fun,” Brady told the hosts of “The Pivot Podcast.” However, the former quarterback said the roast provided him with a few lessons on parenting.
“I didn’t like the way that affected my kids. So it’s the hardest part about the bittersweet aspect of when you do something that you think is one way and then all of a sudden you realize, I wouldn’t do that again because of the way that affected, actually, the people that I care about the most in the world,” he explained.
“It makes you, in some ways, a better parent going through it, because, again, sometimes you’re naive, you don’t know, or you get a little like ‘oh s***,’ you know?”
Brady told the hosts that he had always tried not to take himself too seriously. While he was being criticized on sports shows or being accused of deflating footballs for his benefit, he found time to watch comedies instead.
“I watched three things on TV: I watch Premier League soccer, I watch golf, and I watch comedy shows. [Because] every time I turn on ‘SportsCenter’ I was like ‘are you f***ing kidding me?!’ I just want to laugh, and so I wanted to do the the roast because the [host] Jeff Ross became someone that I knew.”
The seven-time Super Bowl winner added he didn’t see the “full picture” at the time but eventually felt like participating in the show made him a “better parent.”
Hosts and fellow former NFL players Ryan Clark, Channing Crowder Jr., and Fred Taylor asked Brady if he had any regrets from his career. Brady seemed to realize that needing to find humor in life was also likely what he didn’t do enough of during his playing time.
“I see, like, Patrick [Mahomes] out there at quarterback, laughing, having fun, I’m like, ‘I used to be like that!’ What the hell happened to me? I just got too serious,” Brady said.
“You just learn from it and go, ‘OK, now next phase of life, enjoy it a little more.'”
The 46-year-old added that much of the early part of his career was about “trying to fulfill people’s new expectations” and still feeling like a “14-year-old boy that wanted to fit in.”
“I was like, ‘I just want to go to the field and play.’ Now, there was all these other things to choose from.”
Brady retired in 2023, and despite saying that it was for good, he has teased the idea of a comeback. In April 2024 he said he was “not opposed” to a comeback in the same way that Michael Jordan did in the mid-1990s.
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