Sometimes a rumour snowballs so much that it’s hard to decipher where it even started. As is the case when a recent story about Sofia Vergara having a summer romance with former NFL star Tom Brady turned into Brady calling Vergara ‘too old to date’, which ultimately led to Brady’s rep dismissing the whole thing as nonsense.

It started earlier this month when Vergara shared a photo of her and Brady having dinner together with musician J Balvin on the A-list’s favourite place to holiday – a luxury superyacht. Naturally, Kendall Jenner, Ricky Martin and Real Housewives star Jenna Lyons were also on board.

Since Vergara and her ex-husband-of-seven years, Joe Manganiello, announced their divorce in 2023, she has become a prime target for romance speculation. Last year, she briefly dated Beverly Hills surgeon Dr Justin Saliman, but things reportedly ended in January, and since then she has been tied to ‘younger man’ Douglas Chabbott, who she has also been spotted on holiday with, and of course Brady.

As is the formula with Hollywood gossip, the fact Vergara and Brady are both single and have spent time together in Europe this summer was enough to suggest they were dating until an ‘insider’ dismissed the claims entirely – with a rather galling reason. ‘[Brady] sees Sofia as beautiful and his type, but he isn’t going to start a relationship with her,’ the source told the Daily Mail, ‘as she is older and stuck in her ways.’

Where do we begin with unpacking that statement? Firstly, Vergara is 53 and Brady is 47. We’re does not even sure that counts as an age-gap, especially not in Hollywood. Whenever a woman dates a younger man, regardless of the age gap, her age and its assumed implications quickly become the focus of the story. This is, of course, a tired, sexist, double standard when so many relationships – particularly ones in the public eye – involve an older man and a (significantly) younger woman. Never is the man in those situations accused of being ‘older and stuck in his ways’.

Secondly, as evidenced by all these rumours, Vergara has been spending the summer yachting between various luxury European locations with friends and family. It only takes a gentle scroll on her Instagram grid to see that the Griselda actress is living her best life – a life that puts a lot of people in their 20s to shame. She is evidently spending her summer dining out, sunbathing, drinking and partying. Good for her. But it’s hard to understand how any of these pictures scream ‘older and stuck in her ways’.

Thirdly, the suggestion that someone six years younger might be put off dating Vergara because of her age is a barbed one. It’s hard to imagine said ‘insider’ isn’t aware that one of the reasons Vergara’s marriage to Manganiello ended in 2023 was because of their age gap, which, for what its worth, was only five years. The two actors parted ways because Manganiello wanted to have children while Vergara, who already has a 28-year-old son from her first relationship with Joe Gonzalez, did not. ‘My marriage broke up because my husband was younger,’ Vergara admitted herself. ‘He wanted to have kids, and I didn’t want to be an old mom. I feel it’s not fair to the baby. I respect whoever does it, but that’s not for me anymore.’

Brady already has three children – two with his ex-wife Gisele Bundchen and one with his ex-girlfriend Bridget Moynahan. Unless the source meant to say, ‘Tom Brady and Sofia Vergara are not dating because he wants to have more children and knows where she stands on the matter’ – which would be pretty heavy after one group holiday – then the suggestion she’s ‘stuck in her ways’ because she has boundaries is both misogynistic at worst and insensitive at best.

Which takes us to where the snowball has landed. ‘Tom never said, nor would he ever say, anything like this,’ his rep told People this week. ‘It is pure fiction.’ After all that speculation, source-based chatter and social media commentary – which many were quick to believe – there was no truth to any of it anyway.

Anyone with even the vaguest interest in celebrity gossip will know that relationship rumours change with the wind. It’s safe to assume Brady was so mortified by the suggestion he wouldn’t date Vergara because of her age that he asked his rep to set the record straight. It’s also a reminder of how easy it is to fabricate a story from thin air. Regrettably, this is nothing new, but it’s still something we should all be more mindful of moving forward. Don’t always trust what you hear through the grape vine – especially when it’s pedalling tired, misogynistic tropes about ‘older’ women.