Divorce can be messy, emotional, and complicated for any person who has to go through it.
Now imagine that you're dealing with all the highs and lows of the experience, with millions of strangers invested in the matter, and you'll start to understand what it's like for celebrities.
You can probably understand why a lot of celebrities choose not to talk about their divorces after the fact, but it's also not unusual for celebs to speak out.
Here are some celebrities who took the chance to share their truth and others who took the opportunity to keep quiet.
1.Katie Holmes never said much about her divorce from Tom Cruise.
Briefly addressing that period in her life during a 2020 InStyle interview, she simply said, "That time was intense."
2.Adele worked through her divorce through her music and was frank about it when asked in interviews.
In November 2021, she told Vogue that her marriage breakdown wasn't a spectacular one."I was just going through the motions, and I wasn’t happy. Neither of us did anything wrong. Neither of us hurt each other or anything like that," she said. "It was just: I want my son to see me really love and be loved. It’s really important to me ... I’ve been on my journey to find my true happiness ever since."
3.Jeff Bezos has kept quiet about his high-price divorce from his ex, Mackenzie Scott, simply tweeting out an announcement.
4.Melinda French Gates has not. "It wasn't one moment or one specific thing that happened. There just came a point in time where there was enough there that I realized it just wasn't healthy, and I couldn't trust what we had," she told Gayle King in 2022.
5.Channing Tatum has been honest but respectful in discussing her split from Jenna Dewan.
"Your life just turns on its axis. This whole plan that you had literally just turns into sand and goes through your fingers and you’re just like, 'Oh, shit. What now?'" he told Vanity Fair in early 2023 of their split. "It was probably exactly what I needed. I don’t think I would’ve ever done the work, I think, on myself in the way that I had to do the work on myself to really try to figure out what next."
7.James Marsden said his divorce made him aware of how privileged he'd been.
"A lot of shit went well for me my whole life and came easy to me. Being a white male, you’re born with certain unearned privileges. My life hasn’t been filled with sorrow and deep struggle," he admitted to Men's Health in 2018. "When the divorce happened, it was the first time I felt I lost my equilibrium. It was scary and sad and made me pull everything into focus. I needed to focus on what was important. So that’s who I am now because of that. I know regrets can be catalysts for good things. Not to talk like a Hallmark card, but it’s true."
8.Kris Humphries welcomed the opportunity to share his side of his reality TV divorce from Kim Kardashian, which he did in an essay for the Player's Tribune in 2019.
"Look, I should have known what I was getting into. I was definitely naive about how much my life was going to change. But the one thing that really bothers me is whenever people say that my marriage was fake. There’s definitely a lot about that world that is not entirely real. But our actual relationship was 100% real," he explained in his defense. "When it was clear that it wasn’t working … what can I say? It sucked. It’s never easy to go through the embarrassment of something like that — with your friends, with your family…. But when it plays out so publicly, in front of the world, it’s a whole other level. It was brutal."
10.Elon Musk was pretty quiet about his second divorce, even though he tweeted out a farewell to his ex. "@rileytalulah It was an amazing four years. I will love you forever. You will make someone very happy one day."
He was much chattier about his first divorce, which he penned an essay about to dispel rumors that infidelity led to the end of that marriage.
11.Mel Gibson never opened up about his split from his wife of 28 years, Robyn Moore.
12.Reese Witherspoon has opened up about learning from her divorce from Ryan Phillippe.
"[You have to] look at yourself and go, 'What part of this do I need to own? Which part of this is my responsibility?'" she told ELLE in 2009. "And that's the painful work that you have to go through to hopefully get some real-life knowledge out of it."
14.Jennifer Garner has shared some sage wisdom she took away from her divorce from Ben Affleck.
"The main thing is these kids — and we’re completely in line with what we hope for them. Sure, I lost the dream of dancing with my husband at my daughter’s wedding. But you should see their faces when he walks through the door. And if you see your kids love someone so purely and wholly, then you’re going to be friends with that person," she told Vanity Fair in 2016. "People have pain — they do regrettable things, they feel shame, and shame equals pain. No one needs to hate him for me. I don’t hate him. Certainly we don’t have to beat the guy up. Don’t worry — my eyes were wide open during the marriage. I’m taking good care of myself."
