Angelina Jolie faltered twice before – apparently – finding long-term stability with Brad Pitt. First came actor Jonny Lee Miller, followed by a similarly brief alliance with Billy Bob Thornton. One marital blip elicits sympathy, but two?
Celebrity break-ups are rarely tales of the unexpected. The real anomaly is a famous couple that stays together for decades.
Yet nearly two years on, I still feel embarrassed to admit I have two failed marriages behind me.
Marriage is supposed to be so permanent, so inviolable – two divorces seems flighty, as though I didn’t mean my vows and was just in it for the fun of the wedding parties. But I did. I meant every word, twice. I just failed to understand how much life can change, and how eventually the depressing horror of another divorce becomes the only option.
I don’t believe that celebrities get divorced easily, either.
Despite the widespread belief that they’re idiotically egotistical, getting married for the coverage and splitting up with a noisy tantrum when the interest fades, I suspect it’s a lot more painful than that.
The actress Talulah Riley, famous for her roles in Inception and Pride and Prejudice, recently split from husband Elon Musk, the entrepreneur — all the more mortifying because it’s the second time the couple have filed for divorce from each other, reconciling after their first split in 2014. It’s pretty clear this isn’t a decision they’ve taken lightly.
Meanwhile, singer Cheryl Fernandez-Versini has just split from her second husband, Jean-Bernard, after just 18 months of marriage, allegedly due to his jealousy.
It’s entirely feasible that she had no inkling of this before she married. People do change after taking their vows – they make less effort and their flaws become clear in a way that’s inconceivable during the courtship phase.
This can last up to two years, biologically speaking, while hormones rage and both parties are still on their best behaviour. Perhaps the longevity of your marriage has more to do with the length of time you dated before tying the knot.
In the fast-moving world of celebrity, it can be a matter of months.
Footballer Ashley Cole became Cheryl’s first husband in 2006, only for the couple to part four years later.
And yet despite the stigma, who’s to say two divorces should preclude a successful third attempt to tie the knot?
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt still seem happy, despite the two divorces under her belt. Nobody gets divorced because it seems like an easy option.
Anyone who’s been through the bitter process once will have been bitten hard enough to know that doing it twice, on a whim, would be madness.
So on reflection, perhaps it’s time to change our arched-eyebrow attitude.
Divorce should always be a source of sadness, of course, but given the pain and soul-searching involved, it really shouldn’t be a source of shame as well. — The Daily Telegraph