Patriots owner Robert Kraft reveals relationship with Trump, donation and why they no longer speak

New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft revealed the personal details of his relationship with former President Trump during an interview on “The Breakfast Club” on Friday.

The NFL owner, who has an estimated net worth of $11.8 billion, admitted that he has donated to Trump’s presidential campaign in the past. They first connected in the 1990s and after Kraft’s first wife died in 2011 after a battle with cancer at the age of 68.

“Donald Trump became a social friend in the early ’90s when he was going to Florida. And then when my wife … passed away 13 years ago, he was one of four or five people who reached out to me and it was really, really nice,” Kraft said.

“The only donation I gave him was he called me when he was elected, and I made a big donation for his inauguration. I couldn’t believe it, it was like someone who was a frat brother become president of the United States drunk.”

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The Capitol Riot on January 6, 2021. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

However, the owner said he distanced himself from the former president after the events of January 6, 2021.

“I will say this,” Kraft said. “I was very upset (with) what happened on Jan. 6. And I haven’t spoken to (Trump) since.

Since then, the Patriots have also made an effort to distance themselves as a franchise from the former president.

In May 2021, the team and Kraft denied allegations that he and Trump tried to pay a US senator to drop an investigation into a cheating scandal involving the team, according to a published report by ESPN.

The report alleged that Trump met with late Sen. Arlen Specter in 2008 and offered him “Palm Beach money” if he dropped his investigation into the Spygate scandal, in which the Patriots were disciplined by the NFL to film an opposing team’s practice signals. Trump had not begun his political career at the time and was known as the star of the reality show “The Apprentice.” ESPN says Trump was acting on behalf of Kraft, a claim denied by those close to the former president and the team.

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Robert Kraft and Patriots head coach Bill Belichick after defeating the Pittsburgh Steelers in the AFC Championship game at Gillette Stadium on January 22, 2017 in Foxboro, Massachusetts. (Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)

“Mr. Kraft is not aware of any Trump involvement in this matter and had no other engagement with Specter or his staff,” a team spokesperson told ESPN.

Trump also saw a friendship with former Patriots star quarterback Tom Brady sour over time, but for an entirely different reason.

In the book “This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America’s Future,” author Jonathan Martin wrote that the friendship between Brady and Trump began to sour after Brady married his wife Gisele Bundchen and began following a notoriously strict diet and lifestyle in 2005.

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Former President Trump holds a town hall at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center on Oct. 14, 2024, in Oaks, Pennsylvania. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

“The soccer star, Trump said, had not been the same after marrying Bündchen, who insisted on cooking him a meticulously health-conscious diet,” Martin wrote.

Brady and Trump became friends when they first met in 2001, when Trump asked Brady to judge a Miss USA pageant. They regularly congratulated each other in public statements throughout the 2000s.

Brady told Howard Stern on Sirius XM in April 2020 that he chose to distance himself from Trump when the former president launched his presidential campaign in 2015 and asked the former NFL star to speak on his behalf seat at the 2016 Republican National Convention.

“It was uncomfortable for me because you can’t undo things, not that I’d undo a friendship, but political support is very different than a friend’s support,” Brady told Stern.

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