Obsessed with celebrity divorces? You’re not alone

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The Trashy Divorces hosts have released deep-dive episodes on more than 500 celebrity relationships, including relationships that went on for far too long (F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Fitzgerald). They have also recorded episodes about stars worth rooting for (Vanessa Williams). They had high hopes for Grande and Gomez, and for Vergara and Manganiello, Mintz says, adding with a laugh that the actors were “the only people who are pretty enough to be together”.

Laura Wasser, one of Hollywood’s top celebrity divorce lawyers, said that whether you were famous or not, divorce was “the great equaliser”.

“Everybody is scared, they’re going through the same kind of heartbreak” and the instability of the unknown, she says, adding, “What makes it more difficult for people that are in the public eye is that it’s so public”.

Wasser, who has represented Angelina Jolie, Kim Kardashian, Britney Spears and Johnny Depp, among others, says that, despite headlines reporting messy, public-facing splits, celebrity couples had increasingly been settling matters privately with mediators instead of in courtrooms over the past decade. She estimated that about 90 per cent of her clients dissolved their marriages that way.

Fans may recognise the behind-the-scenes, choreographed effort, one that attempts to shut the door to speculation and gossip. That approach entered a new era in 2014, when Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin announced their split using the now famous phrase “consciously uncouple”.

“We have always conducted our relationship privately, and we hope that as we consciously uncouple and co-parent,” they said at the time, “we will be able to continue in the same manner”.

Wasser remembers a time, some 30 years ago, when tabloid court watchers lurked at courthouses to sift through public documents as soon as they were filed; now an electronic system provides easy access. Wasser advises all of her clients that the moment they file for divorce, the world will know.

“Some people try their entire cases in the media before they ever enter a courtroom,” she says. By settling privately, “you don’t get the mudslinging that goes into it”.

In that way, celebrities are helping divorce become less taboo and seem more a part of life, Wasser says.

“If that changes the way our culture approaches divorce, I think that is ultimately a good thing,” she says.

Nelson Hernández, a marriage and family therapist in San Antonio, says stigma around divorce still affected many couples while trying to share the news of a separation with their families. He says there were often feelings of shame and judgment in these situations, and pointed to the example of sometimes-difficult divorce conversations within religious families.

“Even just telling your Catholic mum that you and your husband are getting a divorce is, for some folks, impossible,” he says. “I can’t imagine what that would be like in the spotlight when your family is composed of all these fans.”

Hernández says that regular couples not in the public eye also tried to control the narrative, just like celebrities.

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“Oftentimes people come to therapy to figure out what their narrative is so that others don’t decide it for them,” he says.

But many fans of celebrities feel as if they are a part of the relationship narrative, says Erika Evans-Weaver, a relationship and sex therapist in Philadelphia. In social media feeds, friends are integrated alongside celebrities, further blurring the lines of reality.

“You see your friend’s post and then you see an update from Sofia Vergara and an update from Beyoncé; it all gets integrated into one stream of thought,” she says. “It’s a fictional relationship that you’re in, but it’s still a relationship. Just like you’re rooting for your friends, you’re rooting for these people too.”

Sometimes our relationships to celebrities we don’t know personally can even border on parasocial, says Bobbi Miller, the host of the pop culture podcast The Afternoon Special, meaning we’ve imagined we know them deeply or understand them in some way.

“There is a weirdly aspirational part,” Miller says. Some subconscious part of you might be thinking, “‘Oh, these two hot celebrities are single again; it’s great for me,’” even though, she adds, “no one has a chance”.

She adds, “It’s the fantasy of it all”.

We have imagined certain celebrities to be “paragons of society who can accomplish anything,” Evans-Weaver says. When they split, it can feel like a mixture of disappointment, shock and intrigue, and it can make you wonder whether any relationship can succeed. But experts say divorce shouldn’t be viewed as a shortfall or something with stigma attached to it.

“Marriage is a contract,” Evans-Weaver says. “When the contract becomes null and void, that’s not a fail. It’s honouring yourself.”

The New York Times

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