Why Do We Care So Much About Celebrity Divorce?

Love is dead. With news of Channing and Jenna Dewan Tatum’s separation, love is once again dead. As it was when Chris Pratt and Anna Faris split and when Brangelina went loudly into that sweet night. The number of people who could not care less and the people who are too much are pretty much split, but the reality is that we have been taught to invest in the marriages and divorces of celebrities. Where did that start? Well, like many things, we gotta go to the monarchy.

Royal family dramas are filled with the rise and fall of tragic marriages. Eleanor of Aquitaine managed to divorce Louis VII to marry Henry II of England and then maneuver her sons to take the English Throne. Pompeia, the second wife of Julius Caesar, was divorced after a man snuck into one of her parties to try and “seduce” Pompeia. Even though nothing happened, “Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion” and she was dropped.

However, our favorite royal marriage/divorce story is Henry VIII and his six wives. Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Katherine Howard and Katherine Parr. That drama has been the subject of plays, television shows, movies, etc because people are caught up in the narrative of excellent people failing. Before his first divorce, Henry Tudor was a great romantic who would throw elaborate parties to celebrate his wife, wrote poetry to his mistresses, and was well read and all the symbols of goodness a King should be. Then he, as the narrative was spun, “left his saintly wife to marry the exotic Anne Boleyn.”

But why would these stories matter to people? Well, beyond the threat of war and all sort of political matters, for many common people, the monarchy was their wish fulfillment. It was their real-life fairy tale. So when Katherine of Aragon was being removed for a young woman, regardless of the details, the common people sided with her, because in their eyes, she was their queen.

Also, the drama. I mean how many stories of happily married royalty do we tell and adapt? Even Albert/Victoria is a beautiful tragedy because he’s gonna die.

Since the 30s, in the very early days of Hollywood, celebrity marriages were cursed to burn brightly and die out quickly. Actors/celebrities like Zsa Zsa Gabor, Jennifer O’Neill, Mickey Rooney, Larry King, Elizabeth Taylor, and Lana Turner to name a few have had upwards of seven marriages. Whenever a couple marries quickly and divorces even sooner it is an opportunity for mockery.

There is an assumption that with their money and looks, that celebrity couples should be happier, more content than the rest of us. It ignores that just like each of us, love burns out, feelings change, and maybe things weren’t that great, to begin with. Doesn’t help that existing and working in the public eye means resisting the urge to put your dirty laundry out there, especially when part of your “brand” becomes your marriage.

Anna Faris talked about this on Dax Shepard on his Armchair Expert podcast: “Chris and I did talk about [the public reaction]. We got, like [people commenting] on the Twitter feed, ‘Love is dead’ and ‘relationship goals.’ […] I think what we were also guilty of — we obviously cultivated something, and it was rewarding for a while. It was like, ‘People seem to think we got all this s— right.'”

Which is something we all do. No healthy couple posts every single fight or argument online. How often do you hold back some of the harsher realities of your relationship because you enjoy being presented as happily in love? Because marriage is hard, we look to these idealized relationships and hope they get it right. Hell, I rooted for Jenna/Channing! I rooted for Brangelina. But I wasn’t looking at them as people, I was looking at them as stories.

Wouldn’t it be an amazing story if they make it? Sadly, when they don’t make it, the story is just as good at times.

How many period dramas do we have about happy marriages? Even notoriously happy couples like Henry VII and Elizabeth of York get added angst to make it more “dramatic” because as much as we want #goals we also already believe #loveisdead and seeing it happen to our wish fulfillment avatars only reinforces the idea.

So despite us not wanting to, or denying it to ourselves, we all get wrapped up in the relationship drama of celebrities. Especially divorce. I mean you may think it’s a waste of time but….you clicked.

(via, image: Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

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