Background and career
Gisele Caroline Bündchen (Brazilian Portuguese: [ʒiˈzɛli ˈbĩtʃẽ], German: [ˈbʏntçn̩]; born 20 July 1980) is a Brazilian supermodel and activist. Since 2001, she has been one of the highest-paid models in the world. Bündchen is widely regarded as one of the most influential supermodels of all time. She is credited with redefining the fashion industry’s beauty standards and ushering in a new era of global supermodel dominance. In 2007, she was the 16th-richest woman in the entertainment industry and earned the top spot on Forbes highest-paid models list from 2005 to 2016. In 2014, she was listed as the 89th most powerful woman in Media and Entertainment by Forbes.
Vogue credited Bündchen with bringing the heroin chic era of modeling to an end in 1999. She was a Victoria's Secret Angel from 1999 to 2006. Bündchen is credited with pioneering and popularizing the "horse walk", a stomping movement where a model lifts her knees high and kicks her feet to step. In 2007, Basia Kolen of Vogue called Bündchen the only remaining supermodel. She has appeared on more than 1,200 magazine covers.
Bündchen was nominated for Choice Movie Female Breakout Star and for Choice Movie Villain at the 2005 Teen Choice Awards for her supporting role in Taxi (2004). She had a supporting role in The Devil Wears Prada (2006) and was the executive producer of an educational environmental cartoon, Gisele & the Green Team, from 2010 to 2011. In 2016, Bündchen appeared in the Emmy Award–winning documentary series Years of Living Dangerously, in the episode "Fueling the Fire". Her charitable endeavors include Save the Children, the Red Cross, and Doctors Without Borders. Bündchen has been a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Environment Program since 2009.
Gisele Caroline Bündchen, a sixth-generation German Brazilian, was born on 20 July 1980 in Horizontina, Rio Grande do Sul, to Valdir Bündchen, a university professor, and Vânia Nonnenmacher (1948–2024), a banker. Her grandfather, Walter Bündchen, once served as mayor of Horizontina. Bündchen grew up with five sisters including a fraternal twin. The family is Catholic. Although her parents speak German and Bündchen studied German in school, she never truly learned the language. Besides her native Portuguese, Bündchen speaks English fluently.
Bündchen aspired to be a volleyball player, but in 1993, her mother enrolled her and her sisters, Patrícia and Gabriela, in a modeling course to teach them confidence and better posture. After the course ended, the girls were rewarded by a trip to Curitiba, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, where Bündchen was discovered by Elite Model Management at a shopping center. She was placed second in a national contest, Elite Model Look, that was then known as Look of the Year. In 1995, Bündchen moved to São Paulo to launch her modeling career. The following year, Bündchen debuted at New York Fashion Week.
How Gisele Bündchen makes money
In 2000, Bündchen wore Victoria's Secret's Red Hot Fantasy Bra worth $15 million and listed in Guinness World Records as the most expensive lingerie ever created. She modeled the Sexy Splendor Fantasy Bra in 2005, the second-most expensive bra valued at $12.5 million. In 2010, her flip-flop line for Ipanema sold more than 250 million pairs for an estimated $197 million.
Sources
Net-worth figure: Celebrity Net Worth, in USD. Biography and career facts: the person's Wikipedia article and linked reporting. Snapshot date for all StarWorth figures: 28 October 2026.
