Tom and Gisele, Kim and Kanye, Diana and Charles: Why do celebrity divorces fascinate us?

Marilyn and Joe. Brad and Jennifer. Brad and Angelina. Elizabeth and Richard. Tom and Gisele. Kim and Kanye. Diana and Charles. Henry VIII and… that bunch of wives. Our fascination with celebrity breakups stands the test of time.

Recently, actor sofia vergara it is Joe Manganiello Announced their divorce after seven years of marriage. Ariana Grande and your husband, Dalton Gomez, also seemed to be ending. Fans were scouring the stars’ social media posts, looking for any clues as to what was happening — in their ring fingers, their facial expressions, and even in the posts the stars liked.

You probably aren’t friends with these people, so why do you care about them so much? Because dealing with a breakup is one of the most common things for a star.

“Breakups are a deal that happens to everyone,” said Alicia Mintz, who hosts the Trashy Divorce podcast with her wife, Stacy Boschma. “Everything revolves around the end. Everybody goes through it.”

As traditional definitions of relationships change and marriage rates decline, people of all ages and backgrounds are still keeping a close eye on celebrities’ love lives and even theorizing about their relationships. have been We hope some people stay together and pray others leave partners we consider incompatible.

While it’s easy to glamorize aspects of stars’ lives, such as their vacations and wardrobe, experts say it’s in their personal struggles and romantic struggles that we see mirroring our own lives. In other words, stars are people just like us.

Or maybe we are the ones just starting to walk the path to the stars.

“Statistically, you have no guarantees,” Mintz said. “You have to have heartbreak to some degree, and seeing other people’s heartbreak can help you feel better about your own struggles.”

presenter of bad divorce In-depth episodes on over 500 celebrity relationships were released, even ones that went back a long way (F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Fitzgerald). He also recorded episodes about (Vanessa Williams) supporting stars. Mintz said, and he had high hopes for Grande and Gomez as well as Vergara and Manganiello, laughing that the actors were “the only people who were pretty enough to be with each other.”

Laura Wasser, one of Hollywood’s leading celebrity divorce lawyers, says that whether you’re famous or not, divorce is a “great equalizer.”

“Everybody’s scared, everybody goes through the same pain” and there’s the same volatility of the unknown, he said, adding, “What makes things more difficult for people in the limelight is that everything is very public.” Is.”

Wasser, who has represented Angelina JolieOther celebrities, including Kim Kardashian, Britney Spears and Johnny Depp, said that despite public and controversial breakup news headlines, celebrity couples have resolved issues privately with arbitrators rather than in court. He calculated that about 90% of his clients broke up their marriages in this way.

You can identify with the choreographed effort behind the scenes, the effort to shut the door on speculation and gossip. This approach entered a new era in 2014, when Gwyneth Paltrow it is Chris Martin Announced their divorce using the now famous term “conscious dissolution”.

They said at the time, “We’ve always kept our relationship private and we hope that as a conscious D-couple, we can continue it that way.”

Wasser remembered a time, some thirty years ago, when tabloid messengers would sneak into courtrooms to scrutinize public documents as soon as they were listed. Now the electronic system facilitates access. Vassar warned all his clients: The moment they filed for divorce, everyone would know.

“Some people go through a media trial even before going to court,” he said. By making deals behind closed doors, “you don’t go through all the rigors of process.”

In this way, celebrities are helping to make divorce less taboo and more of a normal part of life, Wasser said.

Nelson Hernandez, a marriage and family therapist in San Antonio, said the stigma surrounding divorce still affects many couples as they try to break the news to their families. He said these situations often lead to feelings of shame and condemnation and highlighted the example of difficult conversations about divorce among religious families.

“For some people, telling a Catholic mother that you and your husband are divorcing is already impossible,” he said. “I can’t imagine what it’s like to be in the spotlight when your family is made up of a bunch of fans.”

Hernandez said that ordinary couples who are not known to the public, like celebrities, try to control the narrative.

“Too often, people come to therapy to find out what their story is so that other people don’t make decisions for them,” she said.

But many celebrity fans feel like they’re part of the relationship story, said Erika Evans-Weaver, a sex and relationship therapist in Philadelphia. In social media feeds, friends rub shoulders with stars, further blurring the lines of reality.

“You see your friend’s post and then you see the Sofia Vergara update and the Beyoncé update — it all integrates into a single stream of thought,” she said. “It is a fictional relationship, but it is a relationship nonetheless. As you support your friends, you end up supporting celebrities too.

/ translation by Renato Prelorentzo