Gisele Bündchen was ready to put her wings back on for the 2026 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show before an injury sidelined the supermodel.
“Gisele was supposed to open the show, but she broke her foot,” a source exclusively tells Us of the October 18 event.
The insider notes that what was supposed to be Bündchen’s iconic comeback “had been planned for months, so they pivoted to Bella Hadid opening the show last minute.”
Us has reached out to reps for Bündchen, Hadid and Victoria’s Secret for comment.
If Bündchen, 46, had been able to walk the runway as planned, it would have marked her triumphant return following a 20-year hiatus as a Victoria’s Secret Angel.
The model made her Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show debut in 1999 when she was 18 years old.
Bündchen walked a total of seven fashion shows for the lingerie brand before hanging up her wings in 2007 when her contract was up. Her final catwalk as an Angel was in 2006.
The mother of three surprised fans earlier this month when she made a virtual appearance at the 2026 fashion show. (She shares son Benjamin, 16, and daughter Vivian, 13, with ex-husband Tom Brady, as well as a 20-month-old son with current husband Joaquim Valente.)
Bündchen was featured in a pretaped video segment to kick off the event. She wore pink lace lingerie and the brand’s signature pink-and-white striped bathrobe while lying on a couch in what appeared to be a beachside villa.
“Are you ready for the show?” she seductively asked the camera after it panned across her toned physique.
Bündchen had a big grin on her face as she threw her hands up over her head and giggled. She then tossed it back to the live event inside Los Angeles’ Sony Pictures Studios.
The Lessons: My Path to a Meaningful Life author, who stepped back from runway shows completely in 2020, made one more virtual appearance to cap off the explosive event.
“Wasn’t that amazing?” Bündchen said in the second video as she put down a bowl of popcorn, hinting she was enjoying the show from afar.
She teased, “You’re going to be seeing more of me real soon” before winking at the camera and blowing a kiss to her fans.
Victoria’s Secret’s official Instagram account reposted the clip, hinting that its partnership with Bündchen isn’t over just yet.
“See you soon, Bombshell 😘,” the caption read.
While Bündchen’s future with the brand is still a mystery, another Victoria’s Secret Angel has been making headlines for her romance with Bündchen’s ex Brady, 49.
Us exclusively confirmed on Saturday, October 24, that Candice Swanepoel has been dating Brady “for a while.” (Brady and Bündchen were married 13 years before their 2022 divorce.)
A separate source exclusively told Us earlier this week that fellow model Joan Smalls isn’t exactly thrilled that Swanepoel, 38, is romancing the retired NFL quarterback following her own dalliance with Brady.
“Joan and Tom were seeing each other on and off for about a year between 2023 and 2024. It was never anything super serious, but they were hooking up for a while and still kept in touch afterward,” the insider said on Wednesday. “Candice and Joan had been best friends for years. They basically came up together in the modeling world and through Victoria’s Secret, so they had a really close bond and a long history together.”
Smalls, 38, was “completely blindsided by the whole thing and felt really betrayed,” according to the source, who told Us it felt like the “ultimate breaking of girl code.”
