Tom Brady has a spa parlor cameo in a Netflix comedy series. And no, we’re not making this up
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Apparently, Tom Brady is a savage off the football field, too.
In what might be the single most unbelievable trolling of an NFL owner in recent memory (maybe ever), the New England Patriots quarterback appears to have not-so-subtly parodied owner Robert Kraft’s high-profile massage parlor scandal in a Netflix series released this month. Brady made a cameo appearance in Paul Rudd’s comedy “Living With Yourself” — where a middling Rudd upgrades his life by cloning the best possible version of himself at a seedy strip mall spa. We’ll leave the critique of the series to the viewing audience and just stick with Brady’s cameo, which to the knowledgable NFL fan is downright unbelievable.
YOOOOOOO WTF IS BRADY DOING 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂😂💀💀💀 pic.twitter.com/AVK8YPbKpR
— Charles Robinson (@CharlesRobinson) October 19, 2019
The gist of it? Brady appears on screen for 20 seconds, after Rudd encounters him coming out of a seedy strip-mall day spa dubbed the “Top Happy Spa.” Lest the world forget Kraft’s embarrassing legal case for alleged solicitation of prostitution, police surveilled him at the Orchids of Asia Day Spa in Jupiter, Florida. In a seemingly unmistakable wink, both the Orchids of Asia and the Top Happy Spa have a flowery logo.
In the scene, Rudd pulls to the front of the spa and is having some consternation about entering. But just before he’s about to bail on the idea, he’s stunned to see Brady step out of the business. Brady walks out and takes what appears to be a deep and refreshed breath — leaving Rudd’s reaction to likely mirror NFL fans when they see the gag for the first time.
Something along the lines of a wagging jaw and a thought of: No way I’m actually seeing this.
Brady then looks at Rudd and asks, “First time?”
“Uh-huh,” Rudd says. “You?”
“Sixth,” Brady replies — in what appears to be a little nod to his six Super Bowl wins.
He then steps into a black SUV and is gone. Leaving Rudd about as stunned as the rest of us.
Now the clip lives on, lighting up social media Friday night in a way that had most Patriots fans on Twitter initially in total disbelief that it was real. Which was a natural reaction, of course, likely sprouting multiple questions to be answered in the coming days. From “Why would Brady ever do this?” to “Did Kraft even know this was happening?” And of course, “If Kraft didn’t know about this, what on Earth will his reaction be to his superstar quarterback basically trolling one of the most embarrassing moments of his life?”
Interestingly, there do appear to be some answers in the coverage that has orbited the series. According to an interview with online media hub Refinery29, show creator Timothy Greenberg actually scripted the scene into the series opener more than four years ago. And it wasn’t supposed to come off as a seedy massage parlor gag, either. He allegedly even came up with casting Brady for the part before Kraft’s prostitution solicitation charges in 2019.
But here’s where it gets really wild. Greenberg assumed Brady wouldn’t do the scene after Kraft’s spa incident took place — simply because it looked too much like it mirrored Kraft’s visit to Orchids of Asia. Amazingly, Brady agreed to do it anyway. To the surprise of Greenberg, who is a Jets fan, no less.
From Refinery29:
During this waiting period [to shoot the scene], news also broke that had [Greenberg] convinced they were going to lose Brady. In [2019], Patriots owner Robert Kraft was charged with soliciting a sex worker at a day spa in a strip mall “that looked almost exactly like what we were shooting. Like, I would have used it as a reference photo,” Greenberg admits. “So we’re like, ‘Alright, this is clearly not going to happen now.’”
In the end, it did. After the Patriots won [Super Bowl LII], Greenberg, Rudd, and the crew headed up to Boston to shoot the cameo in a parking lot.
“Paul and I were talking football with him for a good hour,” Greenberg says. “It was really super cool and again, I’m a Jets fan so I had mixed feelings, but he’s also the greatest quarterback of all time.”
Greenberg still doesn’t know why the GOAT agreed to do his show, and he’s fine with never knowing.
“I’m writing something else now that’s about somebody getting trapped in a world where suddenly things are going too well and this was like that,” Greenberg said about getting Brady. “Like, really, something is wrong here. This can’t be real.”
Patriots fans would likely agree. Because if what Greenberg says is true, Brady agreed to do the scene before Kraft was swept up in the now infamous massage parlor sting — which is still snaking its way through the legal process, by the way. But rather than back out given Kraft’s incident, Brady allegedly went ahead with it anyway. Which is precisely what has to qualify this as a troll job of Kraft. Because there’s simply no way someone as smart as Brady wouldn’t know how this would look when it all came out.
Of course, not that much fallout is expected. If there’s anyone in the league more untouchable than Brady, we’ve yet to see him. It’s more likely New England will react to this the same way it has treated Kraft’s legal case: With plenty of silence and as much distance as possible.
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