Brace yourselves, Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas are Divorcing

Reports became so dizzying that the pair broke their silence Wednesday, releasing a joint statement on the divorce: “There are many speculative narratives as to why but, truly this is a united decision and we sincerely hope that everyone can respect our wishes for privacy for us and our children.”

Such “speculative narratives” are an unfortunate side effect of how public obsession with celebrity manifests online. Multiple tabloids, including TMZ and the Daily Mail, cited anonymous sources to characterize Turner, 27, as a partygoer who felt trapped in her marriage and wanted to live out her youth. Meanwhile, Jonas, 34, was painted as a dutiful father, solely caring for their two young children even as his band, the Jonas Brothers, is on tour.

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Turner and Jonas began dating in 2016 and married during a small Las Vegas ceremony after the Billboard Music Awards in May 2019. They share two daughters, born in July 2020 and July 2022, whom they have famously shielded from the public eye — a decision that Turner has had to justify to the public and implore her followers to respect, highlighting the outsize scrutiny moms face, Petersen said.

“It points to the need for her to defend her actions and to explain herself, and I’m not sure that would be the same for a man in that position,” she said. “It falls to mothers to justify their parenting identities and choices in a way that it doesn’t for fathers.”

Like Turner, other celebrity women have endured years of scrutiny and speculation about their love lives and parenting choices. An especially nasty narrative spread in the aftermath of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s divorce, with tabloids reporting as recently as last year that sources close to Pitt accused Jolie of launching a “smear campaign” against him with claims of physical abuse.