It’s tale as old as Biden’s left hip.
When young, beautiful starlets marry handsome boy-band hunks, we yearn for every detail of their fanciful fairytale, sipping the sweet Champagne of their effortlessly sexy story.
When they inevitably divorce, we gorge on their misery, ravenous for tawdry titbits and dirty laundry, desperate to apportion blame, to say we saw it coming from the start, to appoint a victor and villain in the sordid split saga.
So it is with once-iconic bro-ician Joe Jonas and his impossibly stunning, almost-former wife Sophie Turner.
Anyone not suffering short-term memory loss knows Joe as a notorious skirt hound who has bedded and promptly discarded some of the most sought-after lovelies on the planet.
He’s frolicked with fellow singing stars Demi Lovato and Taylor Swift – dumping the latter on a 27-second phone call – and even once ‘joking’ live on TV that he’d ‘kill’ another ex-bae, luscious leggy Gigi Hadid, if push came to shove.
So, you’ll excuse me for feeling somewhat suspicious as Joe’s wife of four years, and mother of his two young daughters, has come under some rather catastrophic reputational shrapnel as of late.
When young, beautiful starlets marry handsome boy-band hunks, we yearn for every detail of their fanciful fairytale. When they inevitably divorce, we gorge on their misery, desperate to appoint a victor and villain. (Pictured: Sophie Turner in Birmingham on Saturday).
So it is with once-iconic bro-ician Joe Jonas and his almost-former wife Sophie Turner. Anyone not suffering short-term memory loss knows Joe as a notorious skirt hound who has bedded and promptly discarded some of the most sought-after lovelies on the planet.
So, you’ll excuse me for feeling somewhat suspicious as Joe’s wife of four years, and mother of his two young daughters, has come under some rather catastrophic reputational shrapnel as of late. (Pictured: Joe and Sophie together in 2019).
Ever since the first faint whisperings earlier this week that Joe, 34, was filing for divorce from Sophie, 27, the Game of Thrones actress has taken a non-stop hammering, traduced as a hard partying sh**ty mom desperate to reclaim her stolen youth.
Here was a ‘source with direct knowledge’ to gossip site TMZ, straight out the blocks on Tuesday: ‘She likes to party, he likes to stay at home. They have very different lifestyles.’
Footage showing Sophie downing cheap cocktails and shots was neatly transposed with snaps of Joe on Wednesday, out with their two daughters in LA – the implication that he’s heroically caring for them alone, balancing a Jonas Brothers tour schedule, and being an all-round fabulous guy, while Soph’s off on a sloppy hot girl summer binge-fest in Britain.
And then came that preposterous ‘ring camera’ tease.
‘Multiple sources who have direct contact with Joe’ – who could they be? – claiming again to TMZ that he saw footage of Sophie ‘saying and/or doing SOMETHING’ which confirmed his decision to leave her.
Who knows what the footage shows. Frankly, who cares?
As if it wasn’t hard enough navigating parenthood of a three and one-year-old through a divorce, imagine having the entrenched apparatus of a globally beloved boy band whose name is synonymous with the kind of wholesome All American goodness you’ll find in a bag of Cracker Jack working against you.
Because that’s what this feels like, right?
Now of course, if Sophie has indeed been off carelessly sinking double vodka sodas with mojito chasers, leaving Dad back across the Atlantic with the two girls, then there should be serious cause for concern.
Ever since the first faint whisperings earlier of divorce this week, Sophie has taken a non-stop hammering, traduced as a hard partying sh**ty mom desperate to reclaim her stolen youth. Footage showing Sophie downing cheap cocktails and shots was neatly transposed with snaps of Joe on Wednesday, out with their two daughters in LA.
But I’m going to go out on a limb and say I don’t buy it – Sophie as this unhinged rum-soaked genie in a bottle who poor Joe wasn’t able to rub the right way. And not least because it seems she has only been in the UK for work purposes, filming a new show.
I’ve also seen plenty of pictures of this once-happy duo having harmless fun together with a cocktail or two. And that’s to say nothing of the many images of Joe alone, clearly no stranger to inebriation, matted chest hair out, chugging away.
Perhaps Joe thought we’d all forget that time during Covid when he said Sophie was the ‘homebody’ in the relationship. Or the 2020 interview in which Sophie described Joe as a ‘social butterfly’.
‘I’m an introvert… I leave the house, like, once a day… I struggle to lock him down and have him just spend time with me,’ she said.
Yet now it’s all Joe the hardworking, doting dad – and Sophie the walking episode of Girls Gone Wild stuffing tequila-stained dollar bills into a Magic Mike model’s g-string.
‘Sources’ close to Joe might think they’re protecting his oh-so-cheesy-clean persona with these vulgar mudslings, but they only harm the one person he should be fighting to protect: The mother of his little girls.
Turfing her hurts them – and it also flies in the face of this preposterous joint statement: ‘After four wonderful years of marriage we have mutually decided to amicably end our marriage. 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.’
I’m going to go out on a limb and say I don’t buy it – Sophie as this unhinged rum-soaked genie in a bottle who poor Joe wasn’t able to rub the right way. And not least because it seems she has only been in the UK for work purposes, filming a new show. I’ve also seen plenty of pictures of Joe, clearly no stranger to inebriation, matted chest hair out, chugging away.
‘Sources’ close to Joe might think they’re protecting his oh-so-cheesy-clean persona with these vulgar mudslings, but they only harm the one person he should be fighting to protect: The mother of his little girls.
Oh, barf in my mouth! How Under Siege Sophie must have gritted her teeth. How dignified her staid silence has been.
It’s perfectly clear where these ‘speculative narratives’ are seeping from, a pack of sleazy, sexist slurs that stink like a foul-smelling set of cojonas.
Sophie’s fear of losing her children in a protracted international custody battle must be palpable. It’s every mother’s worst nightmare, next to being publicly dragged through a gossip bog while your hirsute ex emerges fresher than a douche commercial.
But, if we must gird our loins and brace for another clumsy celeb split – in this Great Summer of Star Separations – then let’s hope Sophie can inspire some ‘sources’ of her own to flip the script and give us a happier ending where mom isn’t always the only one riddled by toxic briefing bullets.
