When Mary-Kate Olsen and Olivier Sarkozy’s divorce news came out haphazardly in May, I remember saying to CB during our podcast that we would be getting lots of divorce stories this year because of the pandemic. Couples simply are not used to spending this much time together. And if the married couple has kids, it’s a whole other thing – having kids around the house 24/7 and not in school amplifies everything. Even really solid couples are having issues. For celebrities, it’s a whole other thing – musicians, actors, Hollywood types are used to the traveling-circus lifestyle, so being in one place for months on end is a kind of hell which (you guessed it) amplifies existing problems. But here’s something I didn’t think about: what if the global racial justice movement is also contributing to the increase in divorces? TV writer Charles Ray Hamilton offered this blind item:
Allegedly two white celebrity couples have divorced this year because they disagreed over BLM lol
— Charles Ray Hamilton 👩🏾🚀 (@LittleCharlesTV) July 10, 2020
This went viral after Armie Hammer and Elizabeth Chambers announced their split, and I looked at both of their Instagram accounts and… Armie’s IG is full of Black Lives Matter stuff and hers is not. Like, not AT ALL. She’s only done two IG posts and that was in the first week of June. The rest of her feed is full of photos of her kids and white people. So maybe Armie and Elizabeth are one of the couples in the blind item.
The other divorces we know about are:
MK Olsen and Olivier Sarkozy
Thomas Middleditch and Mollie Gates
Julianne Hough and Brooks Laich
Megan Fox and Brian Austin Green (no divorce filing yet though)
Jaime King and Kyle Newman
Kelly Clarkson and Brandon Blackstock
Christina Ricci and James Heerdegen
Kristin Cavallari and Jay Cutler
Kacey Musgraves and Ruston Kelly
Clark Gregg and Jennifer Grey
Dr. Dre and Nicole Young
Jordana Brewster and Andrew Form
Grace Gummer and Tay Strathairn
God, that’s a lot of people! And some of them split up before late May, which is when the BLM movement got taken to the next level. Some people in the tweet-comments were suggesting that the most likely couples could be Cutler & Cavallari or Clarkson & Blackstock. I think Laich and Hough split up for a million other reasons, but for what it’s worth, Julianne has been trying to be really active around BLM. I also think Ricci’s divorce is about a lot of other sh-t besides BLM, same for Jaime King. Yeah, out of this list… the biggest culprits are Kelly Clarkson and maybe Kacey Musgraves? I have no idea though! Blind items, you never know.
Photos courtesy of WENN, Backgrid.
I’d say Kelly Clarkson and Brandon Blackstock.
I will join you Case.
Also, Armie is not only putting posting about BLM, but he is also responding to commenters who tell him to stop. So he is putting those commenters on blast and replying to why he won’t stop.
It would not surprise me at all if Elizabeth has not posted and asked Armie to stop because her 2 bakeries are in the suburbs of Dallas and San Antonio.
I’m a little surprised that on the basis of a bunch of tweets people are assuming Armie Hammer is so woke that his wife must be divorcing him over it. Is that really how we measure enlightenment now? Good PR?
@Ella. That is not what I am saying. This ain’t new for Armie. It could have been one of many things that lead to them separating.
Come on now. Don’t act new.
Yeah, I agree with Ella. I looked at Elizabeth’s instagram, and a lot of her recent photos have been in support of a local food bank and an antiracism charity, tagged with #blacklivesmatter. It’s in white-lady-centered method of activism, which isn’t ideal but it’s better than nothing. Arnie is all antiracist memes, but she doesn’t seem to be anti-BLM at all. I don’t think it has anything to do with BLM, they’ve had issues for years.
Just want to note that while Texas as a whole has been red for a long while (though now maybe turning) San Antonio is very blue.
I don’t think it’s anything like the whole story of why they split, but yeah, I think that’s going to be the story Armie spreads via sources.
I don’t know about Kelly. Her ex is a major douchebag, and I tend to think he either got caught cheating or threw a tantrum because she’s been busy working.
Kacey Musgraves seems like a good guess. She and her husband seemed pretty distant for a while, but BLM could have been the final nail in the coffin.
I think Cutler/Cavallari are one of the LEAST likely. They split long before George Floyd’s murder and the reasons seemed pretty abundant.
It seems weird to me that a couple — especially a couple that’s been together a pretty long time — wouldn’t know they had differences over something like BLM pretty early on in their relationship. But I guess maybe some ugly truths were revealed. It’s interesting.
There are several we can cross of the list, I think. Cavallari and Cutler had lots of other issues and on top of that, I don’t see either one of them being so passionate about BLM. I doubt it’s Mary Kate and her ex. Clark Gregg and Jennifer Grey separated in January. Julianne and Brooks had been living separately for months and there have been rumors for longer than that they had issues. And it sounds like Christina Ricci was dealing with domestic violence issues.
I know some people are rethinking their life choices and options in light of this strange 2020. So BLM could have just pushed some people over the edge and given them more courage to leave toxic people behind.
@Esmom “It seems weird to me that a couple — especially a couple that’s been together a pretty long time — wouldn’t know they had differences over something like BLM pretty early on in their relationship. But I guess maybe some ugly truths were revealed. It’s interesting.”
You’d actually be surprised. I’m desi, and my partner is white, we’ve been together almost 7 years. Honestly, when all this started blowing up is when I first saw his opinions on BLM and I very quickly ripped him a second asshole when he tried to mansplain some stupidass white crap to me (“I’m spanish so I’m a minority too”. BITCH PLEASE). The thing is, we just never had the opportunity to discuss this stuff before. Where we live is very white, and as a desi I’m pretty white adjacent so it was never really an issue. Until now. It’s a luxury, for sure. The good news is he’s learning.
Snazzy, can you explain what you mean by Desi? I thought it referred to India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.
Hi Bananapanda,
Absolutely! I’m of Indo/Pakistani origin, born in Canada, now living in Europe. So I consider myself a desi. It’s why I used it here 🙂
(When I put the “I’m spanish” part in my comment – sorry I realise that may cause confusion. That’s what he used to tell me when we spoke about racism, and where the argument begins… )
Thanks, Snazzy, I’ve never heard that term before. Is it an abbreviation of something?
I’d also add that I think a lot of people have developed opinions about BLM during this round of protesting who hadn’t really engaged with the movement before. I can imagine that could be seen as “coming out of nowhere” to some people. I find it really encouraging that so many people seem to be changing their minds or at least becoming more vocal about their support for the movement.
I’d say Kelly. And then the second couple would be Jaime King and ex.
I was surprised yesterday when I checked Armies Hammer’s Instagram to see “many” BLM related post, I didn’t expect it from him at all.
I can see why a disagreement over BLM (and overall basic understanding of white privilege and human rights) could have triggered one person to see his partner differently. I saw my mom say some disgusting stuff (we already have a difficult relationship but she started being racist and homophobic) and I can’t look past it.
Neither Cutler or Cavilleri give a damn about BLM lol. I could definitely see it being Armie Hammer or Kelly Clarkson though. Kacey and her ex? Eh. I don’t see it
And Culter/Cavallari announced back in April. I seriously doubt they ever had a single conversation about BLM in their lives.
I think Clarkson and Musgraves are the likely ones here.
It’s not Kacey and Ruston. She has been straight up tweeting support of the movement, and I know he’s at least been liking Tweets supporting BLM. I think they had been having issues for a while.
A running joke has been that Ruston and Kacey actually we’re having issues because Ruston is always talking about how much he loves Taylor Swift, which is a little weird given how hard Kacey has positioned herself as the anti-Swift over her career.
I can’t imagine divorcing my spouse due to political stances. Like all of a sudden as if you didn’t know who they were when you got married. Always underlying issues and I think a lot of these celebrities were forced to actually spend time together during Covid and things festered. I dunno. This sounds like a publicist spin to me.
@CHRISSYMS
You said “I can’t imagine divorcing my spouse due to political stances.” Two things. Firstly, people fighting against being systematically murdered because of the colour of their skin is not a “political” issue. It’s human rights. They’re fighting for human rights and to call that political is some bullshit. Secondly, white people who’ve never had to confront racism will absolutely find this subject a stumbling block in their marriage when a nationwide movement smacks them in their privileged faces. They didn’t have to focus on those conversations before. Well, now those conversations are in the forefront and they can’t be ignored in ways their privilege afforded them in the first place.
I also don’t understand this. Not towards BLM in particular but political issues are a whole – can’t two adults agree to disagree? Shouldn’t you know who you’re marrying and what their views are if it’s actually something you would get divorced over?
If I found out my spouse was a racist, homophobic piece of trash, yeah, I’d divorce them. But you’d think you would have found that out when you were dating.
As MrsBanjo said, for many people, BLM is not a “political issue,” it’s a human rights issue.
This isn’t an issue like whether raising taxes on the rich is a good idea; this is about whether we should fight for the equality of our fellow man. If you don’t believe in that concept, then I can see where someone wouldn’t want to remain in a family with that person and raise the next generation with them.
Sometimes it isn’t that easy…i have a family member who is going through a divorce right now…. Her husband paid no attention to politics or political issues and had no religious affiliation at all…..then in 2016 he became a Trumper and is now an extreme right political follower, conspiracy theorist, and has become an evangelical Christian. He believes Covid is a government hoax, immigrants are evil and he is a racist and a homophobe. And has become verbally and mentally abusive because she is a ‘liberal snowflake who is stupid an needs to be taught what is right and true’. No, none of this was evident before. And no, sometimes two people can’t just agree to disagree. It is horrible and sad and scary.
H – I would assume that someone would know that their significant other is a racist, homophobic piece of trash, or just even a regular piece of trash. These things are not very easy to hide. This is why I don’t get it. I would never be with a person like that, let alone marry one.
This is actually a reply to Kathgal, because I didn’t get a reply button for her comment: I am SO sorry your family member is going through that. I can only imagine the stress on top of the baseline stress of These Times.
Black Live Matters isn’t politics, it’s human rights. And I think a lot of white people have had a wake up call about having to be anti-racist and not just anti racism and having to take a hard look at themselves, if I did that and my spouse wasn’t willing to do the same? Total deal breaker.
BLM isn’t political, it’s a right.
However I would be down the road if my husband was a Trump supporter.
I wouldn’t be able to stay with my spouse if I found out he didn’t support the concept of human rights for all.
For people above me saying BLM is human rights, not political: it is both. It should be just human rights, but when you have political figures disagreeing about it and talking about different policies and presenting those to voters, and you have people voting for political figures depending on their stance on this, it is very very political. Human rights in general are used by politicians for their personal gain all the time.
Not to mention the whole concept of a right and what is considered a human right, is also political and can be subjected to change.
I would hope that the right to not have a policeman kneel on my neck until I were dead would be pretty much a given. Good grief.
Nobody would (hopefully) disagree with that, but the BLM movement itself is wider and tries to bring in much needed police reforms (so systematic change), and you can see not everybody agrees with that. You have some people pushing for change while others are hindering it. It will also most certainly come up in the US presidential debates. So it is very very political (again: it shouldn’t be, but it is).
I can see if they changed and became way more conservative. If my (non-exisitent) husband started spouting off Trumpisms out of the blue, I’d probably not be able to live with someone so fundamentally different than me.
I mean I found out my boyfriend in college was racist after we’d been dating a year. Never came up then his truck got broken into and the racial slurs just easily flew out of his mouth. (I lived in a 50/50 black/white neighborhood) I think he lasted another week or two after that. I have no time or energy for that in my life.
Some blind items are completely made up. That is why they are blind items. That said, if I had to guess I’ll go with Kelly and her jerky ex.
Sorry the comment was meant to respond to another one
Kelly, definitely. Probably the last straw on top of other issues. Previously, I only saw the last five or ten minutes of her show-it immediately precedes the local news I watch. Lately, I’ve watched longer segments of her show and she has been making BLM an important part of it on a daily basis. I’ve liked what I’ve seen.
Kelly does seem like the.obvious candidate. Her husband is a producer on her TV show as well so if Kelly has talked about BLM on her TV show there was likely a couple fight in order to get it on there.
This is totally Armie Hammer. I’ve always liked him because he’s not afraid of speaking his mind and doing things he thinks are right out of impulse. Yes, he grew up in privilege and he still lives a very nice life but he’s always been supportive of great causes.
He’s been very outspoken about the black lives matters movement, not only that, he even posted a picture of him flipping the bird at a Vespa his mother has with a Trump / Pence sticker. He even “joked” about her mother praying for him to go republican.
My point is, his family and him see things differently. He’s the liberal dem, and I can see his wife not understanding most of why he is so passionate about those causes. I’m not saying that’s the main reason they divorced, but I could see it as a major reason.
Yep.
This is the same man who when he dropped out of school to pursue acting, his family said they would cut him off financially if he did…and he left. Who met Elizabeth, who the family did not approve of,…and married her, were together 13 years and have 2 children. Even if you look at his acting resume, it is one of the most diverse among white working actors, again, because he could.
His family caved and he was welcomed back and he is still who he is.
But isn’t Armie saying they separated in January?
He’s done excellent work in supporting roles in movies such as Sorry to Bother You, Hotel Mumbai, and On the Basis of Sex, in addition to his lead roles. I like him as an actor. Never paid attention to his personal life, but I like what I hear here.
IA. I really like him as an actor. He doesn’t have as much charm as someone that good-looking should have, but he has skill and can do character roles really well. I didn’t know anything about his personal life but I definitely think people can get divorced over discovering more about their beliefs regarding race, social equality, class, and gender. I think it’s a shame people don’t talk about that stuff in detail before marriage but maybe that’s part of what “love goggles” or whatever do, is blind people to each other’s depths and faults for a while, even a long while.
I’ll say, for me, when the BLM movement started taking off, I took to protesting, tweeting my support for the movement, educating my family, etc. This is so important and the systemic racism needs to end, period. I will say, if my husband didn’t support my views, I would have left. That’s how important this is. I can see this being a make or break situation for many couples.
No idea who the lady in the red dress is, but she has great legs and I want those shoes.
Kelly Clarkson husband is a well known cheater, she should have tossed him out years ago.
In my immediate family..do not speak the name Trump! Off limits. I have told my Brother 3x ” I will not discuss that Orange Turd w/ you, ever. No!”
I can see couples splitting up over politics, and exactly correct, the great majority of people are not used to being at home 24/7 with their families.
Things grind on your nerves, no outside distractions, extra stress, etc. one day ya start to think “WTH am I doing with my life?” Will Smith jokingly said “Bad marriage for life!” No. No. No. Life is too short, find the kindest way out and move on. Btw, I never thought I would say that, but at 58 a lot of my views have changed dramatically.
Armie and Liz most likely. Armie comes from old russian money, is white and comes from privileged and racist family. His mother’s is especially racist and homophobic which stems from her religious beliefs, and I believe she makes it known (has on her own social media, and Arnie has mentioned how unbearable his mother is a few times). He is kind of the black sheep of the family in a way, with his apparent progressive views and his behaviour.
Wow, I’ve been seeing these divorce announcements as the weeks roll by but it really is striking when you see them all in one list. So many more celebrity divorces than celebrity quarantine pregnancies so far.
My goes to Armie/Elizabeth. They seem so mismatched.
I think Armie Hammer and his wife are likely one of the couples who split in part due to differing positions on BLM. I checked her Insta just now and she actually did post something vaguely supportive of BLM on June 1, with the hashtag #blacklivesmatter. It’s still what I would describe as watered down, but it’s something. I don’t know much about either of them but keep reading comments that she is very conservative, so I assume people must have a basis for thinking that.
I could see them growing apart over the years based, among other things, on him becoming increasingly “woke,” particularly after playing a gay man – a role he seemed to whole-heartedly embrace and one that in my opinion will be remembered as the best of his career, without question. To me this shows he is extremely comfortable with his sexuality, but if his wife is more conservative, maybe it made her uncomfortable. It does seem like he has been trying to evolve and grow as a person, and while he may have made some missteps along the way, at least he is making the attempt. He and his wife both come from very insulated, wealthy backgrounds and it’s possible she’s not interested in or capable of joining him on that journey to greater self-awareness and social responsibility.
Or, ya know, maybe they just grew apart. Who knows. But he does seem to have been on a path for a while now that diverges quite sharply from the one he started out on in life. Which I do think is admirable.
They truly made a stunningly attractive couple in that very vanilla, country club way. And I thought it was cool he got married young to slightly older woman. In general, for a wealthy, privileged, handsome white dude, he seems to think outside the box (relatively speaking).
Well stated!
When they married at 23, they sure as hell weren’t talking about views on racism!
Someone up top said she has 2 bakeries in Texas- yeah, she doesn’t want to stir the pot and he does, which is admirable for someone who looks/talks like the handsome but smarmy country club asshole.
“…which is admirable for someone who looks/talks like the handsome but smarmy country club asshole.”
This has to be the best description of someone I have read in a long time. Good one Annie.
I work for a divorce attorney and the process of getting a divorce or uncoupling is long and complicated. The pandemic, BLM or Politics is probably , as the old saying goes, the straw that broke the camel ‘a back. In the US, there is a 50% divorce rate. In our office, we have gotten many inquiries in the last 4 weeks.
Wow, I’ve been out of touch recently with everything going on and haven’t kept up on my gos. This list is kind of shocking!
No one has mentioned Dr. Dre and his wife Nicole
Because the blind is about white celebrity couples
Right. I looked at the list of the newly separated couples, forgetting the original blind
Wow, Kaiser, I love your IG research! I have no social media whatsoever, but would be willing to join IG just to solve puzzles such as this!
My late hubby always worked from home, and I made the decision to not work outside the home, as I wanted to be home, raising our children. We spent nearly all our time together, as I also helped in the business; answered the phone, did the books, typed his notes, lectures and a couple of books. We had the nest time for many years. It was particularly wonderful when the kids were on school holidays – not once did I wish school would start again. Strange that I became a teacher, hey! Being together so much is not for everyone, but we loved it.
Lainey did a post on Julianne and Brooks a couple weeks back where it says they had big differences on important social issues. So that could have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. that’s my vote, plus Armie and Elizabeth.
I think we can easily rule out Megan Fox and Brian Austin Green. They’ve had issue for years and we know Megan had already filed for divorce some years ago before the petition was dismissed because she got pregnant with a third kid. Plus Brian even talked openly on his podcast about why they were separating again. So it’s not them.
Same goes for Julianne Hough and Brooks Laich. We had articles for months before their announcement that they were leading separate lives. They weren’t even quarantining together when they went into lockdown. And there were so many articles about how Julianne isn’t a “traditional” wife, how she wanted to explore her sexuality, etc.
As for Christina Ricci, it definitely seems there were some kind of domestic violence issues in her marriage, didn’t she get a restraining order? So not her.
It would be kind of hilarious if it were Mary-Kate Olsen and the Sarkozy guy, only because I’m pretty sure the Olsen twins are not known to be socially or politically vocal about anything??? They rarely give interviews and when they do, it’s just about their fashion companies.
I say Armie Hammer and his wife. They seem to be the likely suspects.
I’m so glad Charles Ray Hamilton is getting recognized as a writer. I met him when he was starting out, he’s just such an awesome person all around.
It seems weird that a married couple would suddenly part over social issues, but if that’s the reason then it’s likely been broiling for some time. We’re at a tipping point finally and this is true for some of us in our personal lives.
I’m newly facing being cut off from family because I expressed feelings about their insensitive and at best, tone-deaf/at worst, racist expressions. In looking back, it’s just the final straw. I’ve dealt with the BS for many years and tried to be quiet to keep family together. People also in this boat are likely finding that distance is needed for their own sanity.
There is zero chance that Cutler & Cavalleri are one of them, there’s no convincing me that either of them holds strong enough convictions about anything to lead to a divorce. I’d put my money on a couple that got married after a relatively short dating period and has been married 5 years or less; there’s no way that you’ve been married to someone for ages without knowing their stance on issues like this and if you didn’t then you were at best willfully ignorant or & if you did know then you were ambivalent yourself and that’s pretty revealing as well.