Almost everyone has at least one favourite celebrity couple whether it’s Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, David and Victoria Beckham, George and Amal Clooney, or one of the hundreds of others whose lives we follow for our own entertainment.
It’s incredibly easy to become invested in these people’s lives and even think that we know them personally because of all the information we know about them that is available at our fingertips. However, sometimes, and more often than not, our favourite Hollywood couples don’t make it until death do them part. The court battles can sometimes even last longer than the actual union.
Tabloids have been invested in celebrities’ personal lives for decades and the general public can never seem to get enough of high-profile relationships and the scandals that usually follow. Some celebrity breakups have been considered a cultural reset. Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin’s separation even introduced the world to the term “conscious uncoupling”.
Kim Kardashian and basketball player Kris Humphries could not make it past day 72 of their marriage before divorcing, citing irreconcilable differences. To this day, the professional athlete is still mainly known for his marriage and subsequent divorce. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s divorce battle has only gotten significantly worse since their 2016 split and has a seemingly permanent place in the pop culture news cycle.
Because of the publicized nature of the relationship, celebrity divorces tend to involve private information being made public. It is also very common for fan bases to take sides in a divorce. Celebrities’ personal lives generally affect their public image and livelihoods.
Recently, Johnny Depp and Amber Heard returned to court for a defamation trial over an op-ed she wrote which essentially alleged, without naming him, that Depp abused her during their marriage.
Divorce is undoubtedly hard enough as it is but imagine how difficult it must be with the entire world’s eyes on you, especially when there are kids involved.
Sometimes celebrities will appear to co-parent amicably like Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony. Brian Austin Green and Megan Fox have said that they even did joint family vacations for the sake of their kids. Despite their very demanding schedules, they have seemingly made co-parenting a priority.
Custody battles are not always cordial in Hollywood and sometimes their public nature can deeply impact the children involved. Ireland Baldwin, daughter of Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger, has publicly spoken out about the anxiety she experienced since her parent’s divorce when she was a child. She also has explained that the media’s attention on the divorce and 4-year custody battle affected her mentally when she became more aware of it as she got older.
Hollywood inevitably amplifies the already complicated and upsetting nature of divorce. Going through the hardest time of your life with the entire world forming opinion about you is certainly unimaginably difficult. The parasocial relationships that we develop with celebrities might not always be healthy, for anyone involved.
https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/50-expensive-celebrity-divorces/4/
https://www.vogue.com/article/famous-celebrity-divorces-angelina-jolie-brad-pitt
https://people.com/celebrity/most-expensive-celebrity-divorces/
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2019-12-30/celebrity-divorces-of-the-decade-2010s
https://www.vogue.co.uk/arts-and-lifestyle/article/gwyneth-paltrow-conscious-uncoupling
