The Patriot Post® · Celebrities on Marriage and Divorce
Celebrities from the glamour world of Hollywood or high fashion have a lot to say when it comes to marriage and divorce. They often give the worst advice and, sadly, there are some people who follow that advice.
They are at it again via a TikTok trend that glamorizes divorce.
For background, “Game of Thrones” actress Sophie Turner and pop star Joe Jonas are in the process of getting a divorce. Other famous personalities decided to chime in, ostensibly to make Sophie feel better about this. The most famous of these was model Emily Ratajkowski, who posted a video on social media saying that marriage was simply part of “being in the trenches” of your 20s — trying out that fantasy but still having your life ahead of you, and your own money, too.
This sparked a TikTok trend in which commenters posted about their divorce (or, in some cases, divorces) before their 30s. Any dissenting comment was silenced by these ladies, who asserted that Ratajkowski was only trying to destigmatize divorce. It was a sad and thinly veiled attempt to glamorize that which is actually heartbreaking. Divorce is sometimes merited (e.g., infidelity, abuse, or threats against life), but divorce for reasons like “we changed” or “we no longer love each other” is the worst kind because it denigrates what marriage is actually supposed to mean in the first place.
Miley Cyrus, child star and pop musician, is a perfect example of the latter case. She and her then-husband Liam Hemsworth got divorced essentially because she put her career above her relationship. Her exact words were: “The day of the show was the day I had decided that it was no longer going to work in my life to be in that relationship. That was another moment where the work, the performance, the character came first.”
What’s sad is that, in the case of Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas, they have two small children who are caught in the middle of this whole mess, and it’s starting to turn ugly. It is suspected that Jonas’s PR team is releasing statements to the press and starting rumors that Turner is a partier and an unfit mother, possibly in an attempt to win custody of their children and keep them in the states.
Celebrities giving advice on marriage and divorce is silly. The track record on most glitterati relationships speaks for itself. The problem, though, doesn’t necessarily lie with divorce. It lies with the fundamental misunderstanding of marriage. Marriage is not a “piece of paper.” It is a lifetime commitment to love, honor, and sacrifice for that one person. It is a covenant that literally means “a promise.” Breaking that promise because you are bored or because one of you has changed or because you see someone else you think you like better is bad. It is a comment on the moral character of that person under those circumstances, and it should be stigmatized.
Marriage has become a part of the larger cultural conversation because of a movement within the conservative wing asserting that men shouldn’t get married because they have more to lose in a divorce. Harkening back to Ratajkowski’s comments about getting the fantasy of marriage out of the way and then living the rest of your life with your own money seems to lend credence to this complaint. But this group of conservatives also contends that finding the “right person” is akin to winning the lottery, so men shouldn’t even try. This is baloney. Finding the right person means finding that person who shares your values and is serious in their commitments.
In conclusion, taking advice from those celebrities who are championing causes like early divorce is a recipe for disaster. All their money, fame, and wealth isn’t buying them stability or happiness; they are just able to lie about it better because they have PR teams at their disposal and more money than is good for them.
These glamazons are merely an exponentially more exaggerated expression of the culture at large, so it is both sad and interesting to see how they live. But it isn’t to be emulated.