Tom Brady Makes Runway Debut at Gucci’s Times Square Show

Tom Brady has seven Super Bowl rings, a Fox Sports analyst chair, and a minority stake in the Las Vegas Raiders. Now he can add runway model to that list — and the internet has thoughts.

The NFL legend made his modeling debut Saturday night at Gucci’s Cruise 2027 show, a sprawling, genuinely unprecedented fashion spectacle that took over a stretch of Broadway in the heart of Times Square. Brady walked out in a fitted all-black leather jacket, matching leather trousers, heavy black boots, and a black t-shirt — and did not break a sweat. His expression was locked in, his walk was deliberate, and fans immediately lost their minds over it.

The NFL’s official account posted the clip on X with the caption “. @TomBrady makes his runway debut for Gucci in NYC 🐐” — and the replies did what the internet does best. “Is that the T-1000 from Terminator?” one fan wrote. Another offered: “Tom Brady wins 7 rings and retires. Next move: Gucci runway in NYC. Truly not taking any losses.” A third admitted, “Man, I thought this was AI.”

The leather look drew comparisons to the matching Gucci outfits David and Victoria Beckham famously wore during Tom Ford’s era at the house back in 1999 — which, intentional or not, was a very good reference to land on.

The Show Itself Was Something Else Entirely

Brady was just one piece of a much larger and genuinely wild evening. Demna — Gucci’s creative director, who goes by one name — chose Times Square for his first cruise collection debut at the house because, as he put it, it is “the most impossible thing.” He was not being dramatic. Rehearsals were near-impossible given the location, and the entire production had to be loaded in and out within four hours.

“I was talking to my shrink and she was like, ‘You’re ready for this, Demna,’” he said. “This is like an ultimate exercise of letting go of control, because there’s nothing in your control.”

At 8:30 p.m., 50 screens — stretching for blocks across Times Square — flickered off and came back online simultaneously, beaming a series of gonzo Gucci advertisements for products that mostly don’t exist. Gucci Acqua. Gucci Automobili. Gucci Gym. Palazzo Gucci hotel. And Gucci Pets, a line of accessories “for discerning dogs and cats,” as a voiceover solemnly announced. Most of the campaigns appeared to be AI-generated, save for a clip from Fellini’s La Dolce Vita woven in to anchor the Italian identity of it all. A photographer standing nearby reportedly burst into tears when the Fellini clip hit the screens. “I’m Italian, I miss my home,” she explained.

The collection itself was called “GucciCore” and was built around the city that gave Gucci its first home outside of Italy — the brand opened its first U.S. store in New York in 1953. Demna described it as a reflection of “the plurality of styles that intersect like the streets of the city.”

Brady wasn’t the only celebrity stepping onto the runway. Paris Hilton walked too — and in a only-in-New-York moment, her image was simultaneously projected onto a Marriott-branded screen looming above the crowd. “Not a Hilton on a Marriott!” one industry observer messaged a Vanity Fair reporter in real time. Cindy Crawford closed the show in a black evening gown, which felt exactly right.

The Front Row Was Its Own Event

The audience assembled for this thing was a spectacle in itself. Mariah Carey, Lindsay Lohan, and Shawn Mendes took their seats alongside drag queen Lady Bunny — who arrived with a towering blonde bouffant — and legendary NYC party promoter Susanne Bartsch. Broadway director Sam Pinkleton, of Oh, Mary! fame, was there too.

Kim Kardashian, one of Demna’s most enduring muses, attended without Lewis Hamilton, who had been expected to appear. Hamilton was, per reports, also present at the event. Kardashian and Demna’s creative partnership stretches back to his Balenciaga days, and her front-row presence felt less like a celebrity cameo and more like a collaborator showing up for opening night.

Getting to the show was its own adventure. Editors navigated a river of tourists, ducked around barricaded sidewalks, sidestepped a Spider-Man street performer, and passed a whirling 360-degree selfie platform before reaching 48th and Broadway, where a block-long photo call fed into a walled-off slice of asphalt at the base of Times Square’s canyon of screens.

When those screens came on, the crowd went quiet. Standing in the consumerist center of the universe, surrounded by fictional luxury brand campaigns rendered in AI, it landed somewhere between absurdist art installation and genuinely funny commentary on where fashion — and America — actually lives right now. Demna has always been good at that: popping the fashion fantasy just enough to let reality seep in, and making you laugh while he does it.

As for Brady — the 48-year-old who spent 23 seasons rewriting NFL record books before retiring in 2023 — this is just the latest move in a post-football life that keeps expanding in unexpected directions. Whether he walks another runway or chalks this up as a one-time thing remains to be seen. But if the Terminator comparisons are any indication, he made an impression.