Why is every celebrity couple breaking up? Relationship experts think we shouldn’t be so shocked

This season’s hottest trend is divorce

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As the age-old saying goes, death tends to come in threes. But what about the death of a relationship?

Britney Spears and Sam Asghari have announced they’re divorcing after just 14 months of marriage. Sofia Vergara and Joe Mangienello also recently revealed they were separating after seven years of marriage. Spanish singer Rosalia and Rauw Alejandro have called off their engagement, while Addison Timlin has filed for divorce from The Bear star Jeremy Allen White. Ariana Grande and husband Dalton Gomez separated in January after two years of marriage, which was quickly followed by her Wicked co-star Ethan Slater allegedly dumping his high school sweetheart for the pop star.

Then there’s Taylor Swift breaking up with Joe Alwyn after six years of dating, before she moved on with The 1975 frontman, Matty Healy. Although, her short-lived relationship with Matty Healy technically doesn’t count because - as Ryan Gosling’s Ken in Barbie would say - they were never “boyfriend-girlfriend”.

It seems that everywhere we look, a new celebrity couple is breaking up. Even the Canadian prime minister isn’t safe from the current break up trend; Justin Trudeau and his wife Sophie Grégoire Trudeau are separating after 18 years of marriage. Have we entered some alternate reality? Is Mercury in retrograde? Are Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson next?

For as long as Hollywood’s had celebrities, we’ve also had celebrity breakups. Some have gone down in history as public and complicated - eg, actor Kevin Costner’s ongoing costly divorce from ex-wife Christine Baumgartner - or have expertly coined new relationship terminology, see Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin “consciously uncoupling”.

With every breakup or divorce announcement, fans are bound to speculate the reasons for a celebrity couple’s split, despite affirmations from so-called “sources” that their breakup was amicable. Because, can a celebrity breakup ever be amicable, especially when there’s so many obstacles that can put strain on their relationship?

In fact, relationship experts suggest that the nature of a celebrity relationship in itself is not sustainable. Sabrina Alexis Bendory, a New York City-based dating coach and co-author of the women’s relationship site, A New Mode, suggested that celebrity couples are simply not built to last at all.

“The nature of being a celebrity is not very conducive to having a long lasting relationship. That’s why it’s shocking when celebrity couples last,” she told The Independent. “It’s not shocking anymore when they break up, it’s shocking when they’ve been together for 15 years. Like, this is a miracle.”

Fame, fortune, career aspirations, or even an intimate movie scene with a co-star can all put pressure on a celebrity relationship. Not to mention that their every move is constantly being watched or scrutinised by the public.

“Two pairs of celebrities getting divorced doesn’t signify a trend, but it highlights how difficult it is for public figures to keep their personal and professional lives in sync,” said Susan Winter, relationship expert and author of Older Women/Younger Men. “Couples grow apart. That’s the truth of our modern relationships. It’s a lot of work to keep our goals in alignment.”

When some celebrity couples break up, they often cite too much time spent apart as the reason for the split. For example, Austin Butler and Vanessa Hudgens reportedly called it quits back in 2020 because long-distance and busy acting schedules got in the way of their nearly decade-long relationship. “Creative projects require time, attention, and oftentimes, travel,” Winter said. “There’s only so much bandwidth we have to give to our work and our relationship. Excessive time apart can erode the romantic connection with our mate.”

“And it can set us up to find ourselves bonded to those with whom we are working,” she added.

Such is the case for Ariana Grande and her new beau, Ethan Slater. The pop star first made headlines last month when it was announced that she and her husband of two years, Dalton Gomez, have been separated since January and are “heading towards divorce”. Just three days later, it was revealed that the “7 Rings” singer was dating her Wicked co-star, Ethan Slater, who had yet to file for divorce from his now-estranged wife, Lilly Jay.

Fans quickly speculated that Grande and Slater’s relationship began while they were both married, but sources confirmed that the two had been separated from their respective partners before dating. “It was obvious on the set from early on... they were very sweet to each other and often seen laughing together,” a source told People last week. “Everyone just thought they were both happily married though and didn’t expect them to end up dating.”

The online criticism that’s followed Grande’s relationship with Slater is actually quite surprising, considering they’re not the only actors to begin a relationship while working together. Perhaps the queen of all Hollywood couple controversies is Oscar winner Julia Roberts, who fell in love with current husband Danny Moder while filming The Mexican in 2000. The two hit it off, despite Roberts dating Benjamin Bratt and Danny Moder being married to makeup artist Vera Steimberg. Despite the rocky start, which included a homemade T-shirt worn by Roberts that read: “A low Vera,” the pair married in 2002 and share three children together.

For relationships that do make it, it may come at the price of one partner’s career aspirations or demanding schedule. According to Jennifer Kowalski - a licensed professional counselor at Thriveworks who specialises in relationships, behavioural issues, and trauma - good communication is key to maintaining a successful relationship, especially one that’s plagued by set call times and red carpets.

“They have to manage all the time that they spend away from each other. They have to agree to travel with each other, to wherever the tour is or wherever the set is that they need to be at. Or they need to have an agreement that while they’re apart, they’re going to communicate daily,” she said. “There has to be very good communication between them.”

That is, unless their partner happens to be someone who’s not in the entertainment industry. George Clooney, Matt Damon, and Meryl Streep have all received praise for their long-lasting marriages to non-industry individuals. Choosing this so-called road less travelled comes with its perks too. If a celebrity’s partner is relatively unknown with an ordinary job, this sense of normalcy can help ground them and bring them back down to earth. And without the demanding schedule of a world tour or six-month film shoot, long distances are made short when you can travel with your partner.

“When you’re famous, that does tend to be the number one. Every decision in your life is basically driven by your image, by your career, by keeping it going. You have a whole team of people around you that you have to support. That’s a lot and, in a lot of ways, you’re a commodity,” Bendory said.

That doesn’t mean it’s always been happily ever after for celebrities who choose partners significantly less famous than them, namely when it comes to female celebrities. Reese Witherspoon, who was recently named the world’s richest self-made actress, announced her divorce from talent agent husband Jim Toth after 11 years of marriage. The world came to halt last April when Taylor Swift, perhaps the most famous musician in the world, ended her six-year relationship with up-and-coming British actor, Joe Alwyn. According to reports, Alwyn “struggled with Taylor’s level of fame and the attention from the public”. Ariana Grande began dating real estate broker Dalton Gomez in January 2020, right before the Covid-19 pandemic forced the couple to quarantine together. They were engaged just 11 months later, and tied the knot at Grande’s California home in May 2021. But when it was revealed the couple were divorcing, sources claimed that Gomez was “taken aback” by Grande’s level of celebrity after their lockdown bubble had burst. “He had not dealt with her schedule, the paparazzi, and the various opportunities that took her out of LA,” a source told TMZ, adding that he “would sometimes question why they needed to go around town with security, something that was a must for Ariana”.

When famous men in Hollywood marry so-called “normal” women, their relationship is instantly praised as loving, healthy, and aspirational. But when successful women spark up a relationship with a relatively unknown man, battling egos and threatened masculinity are immediately called into question.

“We’re talking about really powerful, really successful, talented women dating men who are impressive in their own right, but maybe they’re not the same star or professional status. I see so often when a woman and a man’s masculine and feminine roles are unbalanced, that causes a lot of issues,” said Kate Durocher, a dating coach living in Los Angeles. “If the woman is making more money, or is more esteemed or more accomplished than the man, a lot of times he will have his masculinity and his ego kind of bruised and threatened, and eventually they’re going to start resenting the woman. They’re going to start putting the woman down, and it’s going to cause a lot of conflict.”

Although Joe Manganiello is well-known by Magic Mike fans, Sofia Vergara became more successful in her career. In 2020, she was named the highest paid actress of 2020 after making $500,000 per episode of Modern Family. When it was announced the beloved couple was divorcing, rumours swirled that it was because of Manganiello’s desire to have children, and Vergara’s alleged opposition.

As unsexy as it sounds, compatibility is necessary in even the most famous of celebrity relationships. For couples like Vergara and Manganiello, the question of having children is something that should inarguably be discussed prior to marriage, engagement, or even the third date. It’s likely that the celebrity couple did indeed have those conversations, and feelings simply changed over time. However, Kowalski believes that the best of couples should be growing and evolving together.

“To be successful, you have to be able to communicate with each other. There also needs to be that consistency in the relationship; you need to know that somebody is going to always be there for you,” she said. “As you grow and evolve, you do that together. What happens when there is so much distance, they’re growing and evolving apart, and I don’t think they really know who they are anymore when they come back together.”

There’s much to envy about the lifestyles of the rich and famous, but it seems that celebrity relationships are not one of them. If celebrities are unable to maintain a relationship - even with their perfectly coiffed hairstyles, ageless skin, stylised wardrobes, and luxurious homes - then what hope is there for the rest of us?

Luckily, none of that matters, according to Kowalski.

“I think that’s all the superficial, surface-level stuff. That’s not what it takes to maintain a relationship,” said Kowalski. “If they truly want to have a sustainable relationship, it would mean that they need to maybe take a step back from whatever they’re doing, focus more on the relationship, put the career on hold, or make that come second to the relationship.”

Or, as some experts suggest, finding a really good couples therapist could do the trick.

“Work with a professional - whether that’s a therapist, a coach, or a couples counselor - to make sure that every step of the way, you’re paying attention to the relationship, taking care of it, and putting that relationship before anything else,” Durocher said. “Us normal people who are not celebrities, we already have a hard enough time maintaining relationships and we don’t have those obstacles working against us.

“For a celebrity, having a toolbox of people who are supporting you is so important, because you’re going to have a million more things coming your way than the average Joe.”