Rob Gronkowski’s GF Camille Kostek Calls NFL Fantasy Football ‘Stupid’ After Unnecessary Backlash

A muggy August afternoon in Foxborough set the stage for Rob Gronkowski’s first plot twist of 2016. After attempting to catch a pass from Tom Brady during a joint practice session with the Chicago Bears, the tight end limped away clutching his hamstring—a “little hammy thing” so minor that it would barely matter. But by Week 3, when Gronk finally lined up, the stats told the truth: Zero catches, and a role as a decoy.

The next week wasn’t much kind either, as Gronk only caught 1 of 2 targets for 11 yards. Week 10 came and Gronkowski took what he later quoted as “one of the hardest I’ve got hit in my career for sure.” Initially what was made out to be a punctured lung was later revealed to be a pulmonary contusion. Meaning? The 4X Super Bowl champion was set to miss the next game again. He returned on Week 12 only for the team to later confirm that Brady’s favorite target would miss the remainder of the season owing to a back surgery to fix his herniated disc. But if you think dealing with the injury and the rehab that followed was tough enough, it wasn’t so.

Far from the misfortune of the situation, it was the public outcry borderlining harassment that made the situation much worse. At the time, Gronkowski admitted, “I can’t even go to the grocery store without getting yelled at,” by fantasy football owners—a first-hand witness of which was also Gronk’s longtime partner, Camille Kostek. To this day, Kostek is ticked off about it, which she made evidently clear at a Let’s Be Honest with Kristin Cavallari appearance earlier this month. When the podcast host asked the TV host and model whether “sports fans would talk s–t about Rob” affected her, she responded:

“I think the hardest part for me was this stupid thing called fantasy football, where people would lose money, and they’d…get mad at him when he was injured. And I was like, ‘These are real people.’ And they’d be like, ‘Scr— you. I lost all this money’.” But not to worry as Costek soon learned how to be cool as a cucumber even in the face of fan ambushes. Talking in detail about how she reached that carefree mode, the model decided to bring about a personal example, too.

Mentioning her stint as a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model, Costek reminisced, “Did you know that when you become a bikini model, that makes people feel like they have access to your bikini body to tell you how you should and shouldn’t be?” The Patriots’ legend’s girlfriend also admitted that public criticism nearly robbed her of the joy she once felt about modeling. Costek reportedly began scrutinizing herself in the mirror in ways she never had before. “I’d be really upset about it with Rob,” she said, before dropping the life-changing advice she received from her partner.

“He said, ‘Camille, if I ever allowed what everyone has to say about me and my personality, about my character, about my injuries, about my career, I literally wouldn’t be able to get up out of bed.’ He was like, ‘You cannot allow any of that to have access to your aura. Like, you literally need to get up and shake it off and go out’.” It’s pretty cool to put into perspective that such wise words were coming from an NFL player who was just 27 years old.

But when you look at it the other way: Those who know, know. After all, you don’t become a 4X Super Bowl champion just like that, do you?