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Gisele Bundchen opens up about her life as a supermodel, her life today away from the runway and her headline-making divorce from football great Tom Brady in a revealing interview with Lee Cowan for CBS NEWS SUNDAY MORNING, to be broadcast Sunday, Sept. 24 (9:00 AM ET) on the CBS Television Network, and streaming on Paramount+.

“I'm in a different place in my life. I’m able to choose more of what I want,” Bundchen tells Cowan at her home in Costa Rica. “I think before I was more surviving, and now I’m living, which is different.”

Bundchen, 43, is one of the most famous models in the world. However, she tells Cowan she’s pulling back from the runway to show her true self. What the world saw of her, she says, was a persona she created to deal with the industry, though the work stress eventually led to panic attacks.

“You know, I was in tunnels. I couldn’t breathe. And then I started being in studios, and I felt like suffocated,” she says. “I lived on the ninth floor, and I had to go up the stairs because I was afraid I would be stuck on the elevator, and I’d be hyperventilating … You know when you can’t breathe even when the windows are open, you feel like, I don’t want to live like this, you know what I mean?”

“Did you really think about jumping?” Cowan asks.

“Yeah. For, like, a second, because you’re like, I can’t ...,” Bundchen says.

Looking back, Bundchen says she wouldn’t change anything about her life, including her marriage to Brady. They were together for 16 years. Their divorce was as public as their careers.

“I think it’s not what I dreamed of and what I hoped for. My parents have been married for 50 years, and I really wanted that to happen,” Bundchen says. “But I think you have to accept you know sometimes that the way you are in your 20s, it’s sometimes you grow together, sometimes you grow apart … I mean, he’s the father of my kids, so I always wish him the best, and I’m so grateful that he gave me wonderful children.”

In the wide-ranging interview, Bundchen talks with Cowan about her childhood, her family, living away from the spotlight and how turning to a healthier lifestyle saved her life. She also talks with Cowan about her new role as supplement company Gaia Herbs’ wellness ambassador.

As a model, Bundchen considered herself a silent actress. Now, she wants people to see her for who she really is.

“I just think now I’m allowing myself to come out as Gisele versus as ‘her,’” she says. “I don’t have to play a character. I can be me. And that’s liberating.”

CBS NEWS SUNDAY MORNING has been the #1 Sunday morning news program for 23 consecutive broadcast seasons. It is broadcast Sundays (9:00-10:30 AM, ET) on the CBS Television Network and streaming on Paramount+. Rand Morrison is the executive producer.

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Press Contact:

Richard Huff

Huffr@cbsnews.com