The Joe Jonas divorce playbook
It's Gossip Time!
Hello and welcome to Gossip Time, a weekly guide to the stars by Allie Jones. This week: a pop star divorces an actress, a reality star goes public with an actor, and Emma Roberts meets Bill Clinton.
Last fall, in an interview with Mr. Porter, Joe Jonas explained why he keeps his relationship with his wife, the actress Sophie Turner, private. “I want to feel like an open book, but when we started dating, I realized that I didn’t have a ton of stuff that was just for me,” he said. “And in the end, it makes me a better person to have something for myself.”
With such self-centered reasoning, perhaps it is unsurprising that Jonas has now completely abandoned any pretense of privacy in his pursuit of a divorce. The 34-year-old pop star filed for divorce from Turner, 27, on Tuesday, and his P.R. team has been going balls to the wall trying to make Turner the villain in the breakup.
Just before Jonas filed, TMZ published an exclusive story claiming that Jonas was talking to divorce lawyers and that the couple had been having “serious problems” for the last six months. A source close to Jonas added that Jonas had been caring for the couple’s two young daughters “pretty much all the time.” Jonas then hired Tom Sasser, a Florida divorce attorney who most recently handled Gisele Bundchen’s split from Tom Brady. It looks like Jonas is making the case that their family is based in Miami, despite the fact that the couple just sold their mansion there for $15 million.
After Jonas filed, the couple posted a joint statement on Instagram asking for privacy, but Jonas sources kept talking to the tabloids. According to TMZ, Jonas saw Turner “saying and/or doing something” on a Ring camera that made him realize the marriage was over. (Why was he stalking his wife on a Ring camera? TMZ didn’t say.) Another source told the gossip outlet that the pair have “very different lifestyles…she likes to party; he likes to stay at home.” Then, on Wednesday morning, Jonas went for a pap stroll with his two daughters and a nanny, as if to underline the claim that Turner is an absent mom. (Prior to this outing, Jonas and Turner were rarely ever photographed with their kids; they haven’t even yet revealed the name of their younger daughter.)
Turner has yet to comment on any of this. But she has been filming a show in the U.K., and a source told People that the couple mutually decided to have the kids travel with Jonas on tour while she was filming because they have more family support in the U.S. As for the claims about her partying, well: Jonas started dating her when she was 20. Perhaps it was unrealistic to expect that she would not want to go out and be social for the rest of her natural born life. Also, in a now-resurfaced 2020 interview, Jonas said Turner was the “homebody” in their relationship.
Are Jonas’s blindingly obvious P.R. machinations “working”? Not on the general public, it seems, but maybe he’s finding more favor with young, diehard fans who can’t imagine being anything less than 100 percent devoted to a Jonas brother. The bros are still on tour in the U.S. through December, and they will be traveling through Australia and Europe all next spring. I’m sure Joe will be the perfect, engaged parent the whole time.
Will Marion Cotillard ever get over this, though? That remains to be seen.
In happier relationship news, Kylie Jenner and Timothée Chalamet finally went public this week at Beyoncé’s Monday night tour stop in L.A.. They made out and everything! And Chalamet, 27, smoked openly in the VIP area while ashing on the little people below. (Jenner, 25, was not seen smoking, but please recall that she was carrying a pack of cigarettes and an ashtray in the first long-range paparazzi pics of the couple snapped back in June.)
According to a source who talked to People (Kris Jenner), everything is going great with these two. “They have been seeing each other for six months now. He makes Kylie happy,” the source revealed. “He has his own life and understands that Kylie needs to prioritize her kids. He is charming, very loving and protective of Kylie. She likes that he is a private guy.”
Sure, whatever!
Also showing P.D.A. this week: Leo DiCaprio and his 25-year-old model-of-the-moment Vittoria Ceretti. The two were photographed like so in Ibiza:
Ceretti, 25, remains married to someone else.
Speaking of, Ariana Grande and her married boyfriend Ethan Slater are still going strong. Both returned to Instagram this week and have been “liking” each other’s posts. Grande, 30, is working on her beauty line, and Slater, 31, is rehearsing for the revival of Spamalot on Broadway, which starts previews at the end of October. Will Grande show up to opening night?
STUFF BY HILARY DUFF: Sadly, Hilary Duff’s Hulu show How I Met Your Father got canceled this week. Duff can’t comment on the news directly due to strike rules, but she did mix it up in the comments section of Variety’s Instagram post about the cancellation. Responding to a troll who called the show “so cringe,” she wrote, “You have 63 followers.” Burn!
Finally, I must leave you with this mesmerizing paparazzi video of Emma Roberts leaving an East Hampton bookstore occupied by former President Bill Clinton. Please click to watch:
Get OUT of the way, she cries to the plainclothes secret service agent as she maneuvers herself and two sweating iced coffees through the doorway. Where is my UBER, she asks someone off camera as she reaches the sidewalk. This is inSANE, she mutters to no one in particular or perhaps God. Too soon to say this is my favorite theatrical performance of 2023?
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is that marion cotillard comment real? hahaha legend.
I feel like the Kylie-Timmy video is what we’ve been waiting for and yet the public reaction (the @clubchalamet) has been so much more interesting than them being mutedly loved up (when they should have been DANCING TO BEYONCE)