by Carson Abrir
The jokes about celebrities and unions don’t seem so funny lately. With 120,000 members nationwide, the Screen Actors Guild, their professional union, looks stronger than ever. But with celebrity couples calling it quits on their marriages and families becoming an almost daily event, the state of their more intimate unions isn’t looking too good.
People broke today’s big news that actress Ashlee Simpson and guitarist Pete Wentz “have just grown apart.”
Ashlee is the younger sister of pop singer Jessica Simpson whose break-up with Nick Lachey after their Newlyweds reality show caused a stir.
Of course, the divorcing couple says ending their marriage after 2½ years is all very amicable.
“It’s all about [their 2-year old son] Bronx for them. They’re fantastic parents – Pete says she’s a great mom, and she says he’s a great father. It’s about Bronx’s care and well-being and happiness for them,” People reported.
Simpson and Wentz are far from alone this week.
Jude Law and Sienna Miller were one of Hollywood’s hottest couples before their break-up at the end of 2006. They got back together in December 2009, just three months after Law’s subsequent girlfriend, Samantha Burke, came home from the hospital with their newborn daughter, Sophia.
Entertainment Weekly reports that Law and Miller’s on-again, off-again, on-again romance is now definitely off-again.
Kelsey Grammer also appeared speeding closer to the final curtain on his third marriage and a fast start to his fourth this week. The superstar celebrity known for more than 20 years as Dr. Frasier Crane on NBC’s Cheers and Frasier, has booked the Plaza Hotel Ballroom after announcing his engagement to girlfriend Kayte Walsh at the end of December. Grammer didn’t let his current marriage to former Playboy model Camille Donatacci keep him from almost becoming a father with Walsh in August. Three weeks after the public announcement that Walsh and Grammer were expecting a baby, Walsh miscarried.
“Kayte and I are marrying because we are engaged, and we are engaged because we are in love and see no reason to postpone our happiness any longer,” Grammer said.
Surely no one begrudges the celebrities who entertain us nightly their share of love and happiness. The fact that we see so many of them hit the off button so quickly at the first signs of typical relationship and marital woes regardless of their promises to each other and their children is likely a sign that with all their fame and riches, they’re not much different from many others who have become increasingly disconnected from the meaning of commitment.
Dionne Roberts-Emegha from Missouri City, Texas may have said it best in a recent post on people.com.
“Young people are under this illusion that when you get married, you’re supposed to ‘feel’ in love with your partner every day, as you grow old together. Marriage is a decision to be committed to someone and support that person regardless of how you feel every second of every day. When those feelings of love go from the marriage, then make a decision to spend more time together, enjoy the company of the other, do things that make the other smile, continue to show respect, and before you know it you will ‘feel’ love again. That’s why they say marriage is work, because it is.”
“What they don’t understand,” she added, “is that it will be no different with the next person they marry.”