Gisele Bündchen Reveals the Real Way to Pronoun...

After decades spent working and living in the United States, Gisele Bündchen has become accustomed to hearing her Portuguese name mispronounced

Published Time: 10.05.2024 - 21:31:13 Modified Time: 10.05.2024 - 21:31:13

After decades spent working and living in the United States, Gisele Bündchen has become accustomed to hearing her Portuguese name mispronounced.

The Brazilian star, 43, clarified how her name actually sounds in Portuguese during a 2005 appearance on Late Night with Conan O'Brien.

Bündchen looked back on the earliest years of her modeling career, when she first moved to New York City at just 16 years old. At the time, she was getting by with only a novice-level knowledge of English.

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She ran into the language barrier in her personal and professional life, especially as she was trying to book gigs as an up-and-coming model under her commonly misread name. In her native tongue, it's pronounced Gisele-y, with a long vowel "e" at the end.

In the United States, she explained to O'Brien during their interview, she quickly noticed how English speakers tended to "eat" the last part of her name.

"I’d be like, 'This is not a difficult name!' " she recalled on the late nig -

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ht show. "So I would just write it down, and they'd be like, 'Gisele.' "

Eventually, the mom of two resigned to hearing her name pronounced the "American way," as she dubbed it. To O'Brien, she joked, "Call me whatever you feel like!"

While her name may have taken on its own sound away from home, Bündchen remains in touch with her Brazilian roots. This month, the supermodel spoke up about devastating flooding in her home state of Rio Grande do Sul.

On Instagram, she asked her fans and followers to consider donating to theLuz Alliance Fund, an initiative she launched with the Brazil Foundation. The organization provides humanitarian aid to families in Brazil.

HerInstagram Reeldepicted photos and footage of the flooding damage in southern Brazil, which Bündchen called "the worst tragedy in its history."

"Heavy rains flooded entire towns in most parts of the state. It's not one or two cities; it's more than 350 cities affected. People are not only losing their houses and their jobs. They're losing everything. And there are many still to be rescued. Nobody was ready for such devastation," she explained.