Brady passes on chance to take home trophy wife
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GLENDALE, Ariz. -- I’m just here to report the facts.
It is NFL media day at the Super Bowl, and inside the University of Phoenix Stadium, the woman in the white wedding dress is making her way toward Tom Brady.
The dress is off her shoulders and threatening to fall to her waist, and I’m all over her, of course, following her every step because I’m a paid observer for The Times.
It’s a short dress, a little bare leg and then all white sheer stockings ending in a pair of tall red heels. I vaguely remember the wife’s wedding dress, something covering her all over as if she thought it were going to be an outdoor ceremony in Green Bay.
Things change, in this case a reporter for TV Azteca coming to the Super Bowl to get both a story and a husband.
As for the guy dressed as a fortune teller, the Giants player who castrates sheep with his teeth, “Tonight Show” correspondent and former American Idol finalist Kellie Pickler and the reporter who asked questions though his puppet, I’ll get to them.
WITH MICROPHONE in hand, the reporter/bride asks Brady if he will propose to her, and he’s cool, as if he’s got experience in these things, although she does not appear to be pregnant.
“No,” he says, he won’t propose to her because, “I’m a one-woman man.” And while everyone concludes he’s probably talking about super model Gisele Bundchen, unfortunately Bridget Moynahan is unavailable for comment.
The reporter/bride is upset and takes her case to Bill Belichick, and I’m not making any of this up, because as serious as a Super Bowl is, that would be disrespectful.
“Don’t you think I’m better than Gisele?” she asks Belichick, and Belichick, who is famous for studying film, says, “I wouldn’t go that far.”
A crowd of reporters is around the bride, because who wants to listen to Belichick, and she’s telling them, “I no longer love Tom Brady; I now love Manning.”
As you would guess, and I ask, it doesn’t matter which one.
MORE THAN any other year in memory, media day is overflowing with beautiful women representing various media outlets -- the dress of the day, boots or heels, tight jeans or dresses and tops too small.
For some reason when they ask a player, “Do you have a minute?” they get 10. A mob of reporters surrounds Brady, but another TV Azteca reporter, who is wearing Las Vegas nighttime attire, immediately gets Brady’s attention when she asks a question.
“What’s the key to beating the Jets?” she says.
“The Jets, the Giants, it’s New York and all the same I guess,” Brady says, while then taking the time to satisfy her.
You have to give a lot of credit to The Times’ Sam Farmer, the way he looks, and yet he’s still able to get all the interviews he wants.
I was standing behind the TV Azteca reporter because it’s my only chance to get Brady’s attention. I notice she’s wearing a pair of jeans that are drawing a lot of attention from the players. When coaches talk about distractions, I now understand.
I take a close look to read the brand name, my glasses just not what they used to be, taking a good 30 minutes to get to the bottom of it for our readers. They are “Studio” jeans. Accuracy is so important in what we do.
A REPORTER is interviewing players through his puppet monkey, Charly, but I notice Charly makes a point of avoiding Giants offensive lineman Grey Ruegamer.
It makes sense if Charly is related to Lamb Chop, but apparently the monkey community is also unnerved by the news that Ruegamer likes to castrate lambs with his teeth.
He says he could use his hands, but there’s dirt everywhere and so it’s just easier to wash out his mouth. The only drawback, he says, is “the blood in your mustache.”
He says, “Most people are used to going to the supermarket for food, but I don’t mind going to the backyard and hacking something up.”
Never did see Charly the rest of the day.
HARD TO describe what the two clowns mugging for the cameras were wearing. OK, so one was ESPN’s Chris Berman, and he was wearing a suit. But the other reporter was wearing a gold turban, a cape decorated with astrological signs and a bunch of different colored rings.
I tell Telemundo reporter Joel Bengoa, who has dressed as a sumo wrestler, Princess Leia and Princess Fiona for other events, if he really wants to stick out at a Super Bowl, he ought to come dressed as a Charger next year.
Several of the Giants, meanwhile, are allowing Pickler to paste “I love Kellie” stickers on their faces, while fullback Madison Hedgecock agrees to take off his sneakers and jam his feet into size 14 red pumps. He almost takes a header, and it would’ve been fun watching him explain it to Tom Coughlin.
Brian Ouellette, who works for the Associated Press, turns over his media credential and gets Pickler to autograph it. It will be interesting to see who calls first asking for an explanation, his girlfriend or his AP boss.
Giants linebacker Tank Daniels is pointing a video camera at himself and shouting, “I’m so Hollywood now, I just met Kellie Pickler. I feel like Denzel.”
Miss Nevada USA, sash and all and working for a Las Vegas radio station, is going from player to player and sitting in their laps. I guess there’s a Vic the Brick in every city.
THE BRIDE is now holding a T-shirt up in front of Eli Manning that reads, “Marry Me Manning.” He declines. She asks him to blow her a kiss. He declines.
Media day is rapidly coming to a close, the Patriots long gone, the Giants about to leave, and so she moves on to Jeff Feagles, bald, married and looking at birthday No. 42 next month.
She wants to kiss him. He agrees. Sometimes when you’re working a story you just have to take what you can get.
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T.J. Simers can be reached at [email protected]. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.
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