A Florida mayor has criticized a police officer who pulled over Gisele Bündchen for a traffic stop, calling the behavior toward the supermodel “unacceptable.”
Bodycam footage captured the interaction between the police officer and Bündchen, 45, in Surfside — a town about 30 minutes from Miami Beach — on Wednesday. Footage obtained by Fox News Digital showed Bündchen telling the officer she was attempting to escape the paparazzi following her.
The police officer acknowledged her situation but said there was “nothing” he could do about it.
“Yeah, but he’s, like, stalking me,” Bündchen said.
The police officer then told Bündchen she’d need to contact the Miami Beach Police Department since that’s when the paparazzi began following her. After the police officer apologized, Bündchen broke down into tears.
“I’m so tired,” she said. “Everywhere I go I have these fucking guys after me. Nothing protects me. I can’t do nothing. I just want to live my life.”
The police officer responded that he couldn’t stop the paparazzi from doing their job, which is to take photographs.
“I don’t know how that’s allowed,” she said.
Now, Mayor Charles Burkett has lambasted the police officer in a letter addressed to Surfside Police Department’s Chief of Police, according to WPLG.
“This response is wholly unacceptable and not reflective of the values, judgement and service residents expect from their police,” Burkett wrote. “The dismissive posture towards a resident who is clearly in distress is everything we do not want to see in the way our police interact and serve our residents.”
Interim Police Chief Henry Doce echoed Mayor Burkett’s sentiments in a statement to the outlet.
“I would have liked to have seen more empathy at the initial contact to what was going on,” Doce said.
Still, Doce added that the police officer is “phenomenal.”
“Could we have done better? I think it’s a learning opportunity to understand what the dynamics of that situation is,” Doce told WPLG.
Representatives for Bündchen, Burkett, and the Surfside Police Department did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.
Bündchen moved to Florida in 2020 after her former husband, Tom Brady, joined the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Bündchen and Brady announced their divorce in October 2022 after getting married in February 2009.
The pair share two children — Benjamin and Vivian — and Brady has a son named John from a previous relationship.
