The inside story of Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner’s divorce: An ‘amicable’ goodbye, months spent apart and diametrically opposed lifestyles
After four years of marriage, on Tuesday the couple announced their separation. Now, they have released a statement about their ‘united decision,’ although reports say the choice was made by the singer, who is seeking custody of the couple’s two daughters
Few were surprised when the news of the separation of singer Joe Jonas and actress Sophie Turner was made public on Tuesday, September 5. Rumors had been circulating for days, if not weeks. The 34-year-old musician had been seen without his wedding ring at several of his concerts. After some renovations and reductions in price, the family mansion in Miami was sold in August. He contacted divorce lawyers. The media had been reporting a crisis for some time. Now, the facts have confirmed it. On Tuesday, the press announced the divorce filing; on Wednesday, the former couple put out a brief statement. But the American media, which sometimes tends to inflate stories about certain personalities, has given accurate, nearly minute-by-minute reports on the dissolution of the marriage between the Jonas Brothers vocalist and the Game of Thrones actress. And the press continues to provide information about the difficulties between the two.
Jonas and Turner each posted the same short statement on their Instagram accounts (on which comments are disabled). “Statement from the two of us: After four wonderful years of marriage we have mutually and amicably decided to end our marriage,” they wrote. “There are many speculative narratives as to why, but truly this is a united decision and we sincerely hope that everyone can respect our wishes for privacy for us and our children.”
Indeed, they were “speculative narratives,” but they were not far off. There are documents and sources that explain the demise of the Jonas-Turner marriage and how they got to this point after their brief romance, long engagement, two weddings in Las Vegas and France and two daughters, who are one and three years old. People, which always has a finger on the pulse of celebrity news, tells us that the couple has been “living separate lives for months” and that they spent “the whole summer apart,” according to sources close to them. “They haven’t gotten along in a while, but they’re hoping to resolve this all amicably.” Now, the decision has finally been made, and they are waiting to decide on the custody of their children. As for their assets, they have a prenuptial agreement, according to which he will keep the profits from his copyrights and she will keep her earnings from Game of Thrones and her other work. Settled in Florida, the girls have spent the last few months with Joe while Sophie has been working in her native United Kingdom.
According to the court documents, which were filed in Florida on Tuesday and to which TMZ had access, the singer wants the couple’s little ones to stay in Miami “and in other locations in the United States”; in other words, he does not want them to go to England with their mother. He also wants to establish a custody agreement that allows the two of them “continuous and frequent contact with both parties,” according to close sources. Jonas has hired Thomas Sasser, the prestigious West Palm Beach lawyer who handled Tiger Woods’s divorce in 2010 and also reportedly represented Gisele Bündchen in her separation from Tom Brady.
The couple’s different lifestyles made it difficult for them to manage their relationship. While some sources close to them claim that Turner was very social and partial to going out at night and Jonas was more of a homebody and less inclined to embrace the nightlife, interviews they gave during the pandemic say the opposite. In 2020, Turner half-jokingly (and half-seriously) said that living in quarantine at home was not difficult for her, that she was “loving it. I’m an introvert, I’m a homebody...If I could stay at home all day, I would, so this is great for me,” she said in an interview with Conan O’Brien. She added that she appreciated the lockdown period because her husband was “a real social butterfly...I struggle to kind of, lock him down and have him just spend time with me,” she said. “It’s like prison for him but it’s great for me,” she stated. Turner also explained that the musician had installed DJ sets and broadcast his jam sessions on Instagram.
Therefore, the narrative that she was the party animal while he was the homebody doesn’t jibe with her own statements (although there are some photos of her taking shots with friends in London a few days before the divorce was announced, apparently celebrating the end of a shoot). Those differences have led some of her fans to accuse Jonas of leaking information to mount a “smear campaign” against the actress and the mother of his children. But we must not forget that both have legions of fans: he won followers as part of the Jonas Brothers, the band that became a teenage phenomenon in the mid-2000s and later returned to great success, while she gained fans as part of two dramas with huge followings, Game of Thrones (in which she played Sansa Stark) and X-Men (as the Dark Phoenix).
It seems clear that almost all the information to which the American press has access favors Jonas’s position. The most recent leaked episode is that he saw her through a ring camera doing or saying something that he did not like, to the point that he realized that his marriage was irrevocably over. However, these are only partial sources, and the two have not confirmed—nor are they likely to confirm—anything in this regard. The secrets will remain within the walls of Miami mansions, known only to tough lawyers... at least until someone decides to leak them.
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