In December 2022 the internet decided it had found Neymar’s new girlfriend: a blonde model in the stands in Qatar, kissing a shirt he had signed for her. It made a tidy story, the footballer moving on from Bruna Biancardi with someone new. Almost four years later the answer to “who replaced Bruna” turns out to be Bruna. She is now his wife on paper, the mother of two of his daughters, and pregnant with a third. Here is how the story really went, with the parts we got wrong in 2023 put right.
The first breakup, and the word she used
Neymar, now 34, and Bruna Biancardi, a Brazilian model and influencer, were first linked in 2021 and shared photos together on Instagram. On August 12, 2022, after weeks of gossip, Biancardi ended the guessing herself in an Instagram story: she was no longer in a relationship, it had been over “for some time”, and, in her words, there had been no cheating. She added that she still had great affection for him and his family and asked people to stop involving her name.
Our original version of this story said she had accused him of cheating and that he had proposed with a giant ring in January 2022. Neither holds up: her own statement says the opposite, and we found no record of an engagement. I’d rather correct it here than let a better story stay wrong. Breakups are sad enough without inventing a diamond.
Jessica Turini, the signed shirt and the rumor
The woman the internet crowned as his replacement was Jessica Turini, a Brazilian model and influencer. The rumor started at a party at Neymar’s Paris home in August 2022, where a guest’s video showed her sitting on his lap. In Qatar she posted a clip of herself celebrating a Neymar goal in a shirt he had signed “for Jessica Turini, with lots of affection and love”, and she kissed the crest. She spent New Year’s Eve in Paris, captioned her photo “Girls night out”, and never confirmed she was his date.
Neither of them ever called it a relationship. My read: a signed shirt is a friendly gesture with excellent PR timing, not a love story, and we should not have presented it as one.
Back together, an apology and a baby
By early 2023 Neymar and Biancardi were quietly a couple again, and in April they announced they were expecting. In June 2023 Neymar posted a long apology to her on Instagram. “I made a mistake,” he wrote, and: “I don’t know if it will work between us, but TODAY you can be sure that I want to try.” It was a rare thing in football, a star taking the blame in public instead of letting his agent do it.
Their daughter Mavie was born on October 6, 2023. Weeks later, at the end of November, Biancardi announced on Instagram that they were no longer together and were connected as Mavie’s parents, after reports of messages he had allegedly sent to another model. Neymar said the messages were old. In 2024 they reconciled, and that time it held.
“Married on paper” and a growing family
On June 7, 2025, a fan asked Biancardi on Instagram when the wedding would be. Her answer: “Já somos casados no papel”, we are already married on paper. No ceremony photos, no details. Their second daughter, Mel (“honey” in Portuguese), was born on July 5, 2025, in São Paulo. Neymar also has a son, Davi Lucca, with Carolina Dantas, and a daughter, Helena, born in 2024, with the model Amanda Kimberlly.
What strikes me is how little they said. After years when every story was told for them, the biggest news arrived as one line in a question box.
World Cup 2026, from the other side of the stands
When Carlo Ancelotti named Neymar in Brazil’s 26-man squad in May 2026, Biancardi wrote him a public letter: “I have seen and lived through difficult days with you,” and, at the end, “Now it’s your time! SHINE.” On June 15, during the tournament in the United States, she posted a gender-reveal video on her YouTube channel: another girl, their third child together and Neymar’s fifth. He joked that he would start a band, “Spice Girls”.
The football ended less kindly. Slowed by a calf injury, Neymar came off the bench in the round of 16 against Norway at MetLife Stadium on July 5, scored a stoppage-time penalty in a 2-1 defeat, and retired from the national team that night. “It started here, at MetLife Stadium, and I finished here,” he said; he made his Brazil debut there in 2010. Four years after Qatar, the woman in the stands was the one the rumor had written out of the story.
My take
The 2023 version of this page asked who replaced Bruna Biancardi. The honest answer is nobody, and the more interesting story is two people who split, said so themselves, tried again and kept their biggest news to one sentence. I don’t know how their story ends, and neither does anyone who sells “sources close to” the couple. For now, the girl in the stands kissing the shirt is still the headline in old search results, while the woman the rumors replaced is at home with three daughters, counting the one on the way.
Sources
- Bruna Biancardi on Instagram, October 2026
- Neymar on Instagram (@neymarjr)
- Bruna Biancardi on Instagram (@brunabiancardi)
- Diário do Nordeste: Bruna Biancardi announces split and says there was no cheating (August 12, 2022)
- Lance: Jessica Turini wears signed Neymar shirt at the World Cup
- Metrópoles: party video with Jessica Turini (August 2022)
- ET: Neymar’s public apology to Bruna Biancardi (June 2023)
- TMZ: Biancardi announces split a month after Mavie’s birth (November 2023)
- Metrópoles: Bruna Biancardi says she and Neymar are married on paper (June 2025)
- Goal: birth of Mel (July 2025)
- HOLA! USA: Biancardi’s letter on Neymar’s World Cup call-up (May 20, 2026)
- Folha Vitória: third pregnancy and gender reveal (June 15, 2026)
- Al Jazeera: Neymar quits international football after loss to Norway (July 6, 2026)
