This week reports flooded gossip sites that Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner were headed for divorce after four years of marriage. Personally, I didn’t want to believe it because from a random completely disconnected perspective, they seemed so young, hot, funny, and ultimately, in love. But on Wednesday, it was alleged that Joe had well and truly filed the papers and an imminent divorce was on the cards.
But the moment these divorce whispers began, another narrative was bubbling under the surface. A narrative that I interpreted as an attempt to paint Sophie Turner in a negative light while Joe got off unscathed.
Let me explain.
When TMZ first broke the news that the couple were headed for Splitsville on Monday, they reported that “sources with direct knowledge” said that Joe was consulting with divorce lawyers in the LA area after the couple had “serious problems” for six months. He’s reportedly now represented by Tom Sasser, the lawyer who dealt with Tiger Woods‘ divorce.
The sources alleged that Joe had been caring for their two children, Willa, three, and their one-year-old daughter (whose name is unknown), “pretty much all of the time,” even while his band was on tour.
It’s an interesting thing to note amidst the divorce news, don’t you think?
The fact that it’s news that a father is looking after his own children boggles my fucking mind. It also doesn’t take a genius to do a smidge of research and find out that Sophie is currently filming a six-part drama called Joan in London. She’s been there since May.
In a follow-up report, TMZ cited sources close to the pair that claimed the reason for the divorce was their different lifestyles.
“She likes to party, he likes to stay at home. They have very different lifestyles,” a source with “direct knowledge” told TMZ.
Interestingly, that account greatly differs from a video the pair posted back in 2020 where both Sophie and Joe agree that Sophie is actually the homebody.
Does anyone else see what’s going on here?
A divorce may be between two people but for celebrities in the public eye it’s much, much more complicated. And this time around, I feel like Joe is trying to control the narrative. I feel like he wants us to believe that she was the issue. She was the one partying too hard, not living up to her role as the children’s mother. Not being the supportive wife cheering him on while he’s on stage performing.
Put simply, if the reports are to be believed, Joe has been good and Sophie has been bad.
Relationship breakdowns are hardly ever that clear-cut. But when it comes to how we interpret celebrity splits, more often it’s about who controls the narrative rather than what the actual truth is.
And if we’re getting really nitpicky, there are countless reports and blind items that paint Joe as a party animal. In fact, over the years, he’s had to fend off more than his fair share of cheating rumours too. I’m not saying these reports are true or verified but I do believe that often when there’s smoke, there’s fire. You can read more about them here.
It’s unlikely that we’ll know what really happened behind closed doors between Sophie and Joe but if one thing’s for sure it’s that we should be wary of what we read and how quickly we take sides.
There’s always more to the story.
