Not a Good Time to Be Named Joe

Or "The Summer That Everyone Broke Up"

Welcome to the last day of summer (and Virgo SZN). We’ve made it through a Venus Retrograde, a Mercury Retrograde, and the annual summer vacation with my parents. And I must admit that I’m ready for fall and the excitement of entering a new season.

But before we fully close the book on summer, we need to talk.

I’ve been in countless conversations and read numerous twitter threads calling this The Summer of the Celebrity Breakup. And I’ve held my tongue every time.

It’s not that I’m keeping score… I just did the math last year (and it almost killed me). Last year we had way more breakups, while this year, there have been far fewer but more shocking breakups?

a refresher of the couples we lost last year:

Tom Brady & Giselle Budchen. Harry Styles & Olivia Wilde. Lori Harvey & Michael B Jordan. Florence Pugh & Zach Braff. Phoebe Bridgers & Paul Mescal (I’m fine). Rosario Dawson & Corey Booker. Leonardo DiCaprio & Camila Morrone. Ali Wong & Justin Hakuta. Olivia Rodrigo & Adam Faze. Then, Olivia Rodrigo & Zach Bia. Jason Momoa & Lisa Bonet. Kim Kardashian & Pete Davidson. Trevor Noah & Minka Kelly. Tish & Billy Ray Cyrus. Andrew Garfield & Alyssa Miller. Chelsea Handler & Jo Koy. Shakira & That Man. Kelsea Ballerini & Morgan Evans. Liam Hemsworth & Gabriella Brooks. Shailene Woodruff & Aaron Rodgers. Julia Fox & K*nye West. Grimes & Chelsea Manning. Ansel Elgort & Violetta Komyshan. Noah Beck & Dixie D’Amelio. Katie Maloney & Tom Schwartz. Lil Huddy & Charli D’amelio.

See? A lot. Last year’s breakups held some moments of elation (Florence & Zach’s). Some moments where I questioned if love actually existed (do I need to relive the Phoebe & Paul breakup yet again?). And even a very very short moment where we all wondered…could it be possible that Aaron Rodgers isn’t that bad? Jk. The breakups gave us memes of Shakira as a detective, and the immense joy of watching Tom Brady fail at football. They resulted in music I haven’t stopped listening to, like Kelsea Ballerini’s divorce album, Lil Huddy’s iconic Charli diss track, and Olivia Rodrigo’s album that may or may not be about a man who is not 6’2”. Upon reflection, I can’t help but agree with the poets that heartbreak is the highest form of art.

And I imagine the results of this year’s breakups will be no different.

couples who have broken up this year where the man’s name is joe:

Taylor Swift & Joe Alwyn. We still don’t know why they broke up, but I did a lot of speculating. Recently, Joe posted his first dump to Instagram since the breakup and his first dump ever without a cat with small ears. Also, RIP Taylor & Matty Healy (But Taylor & Karlie might be back??). Interestingly, within minutes of Joe posting his content Matty Healy was publicly spotted with that goth model Gabrietta. It's probably just a coincidence, right?

Sophie Turner & Joe Jonas. Nothing brings me more joy than watching a celebrity completely misread public perception of them. And how Joe Jonas’s team handled this divorce announcement has had me in stitches for WEEKS.

To be fair, I’ve never been a JoBro girl. I admit that I enjoyed “Year 3000” (a cover), but their hair is offputting, and a purity ring has always freaked me out. Then Joe broke up with Taylor via voicemail, rude? And then, after Taylor wrote many songs about him, Joe wrote one song about her, and I was like, nope. No way. Not today, sir. It’s only okay when girls do it. But when he started dating Sophie, I reconsidered, thinking maybe he was not as bad as I thought.

Turns out he’s even worse. His team has been leaking stories about Sophie being a party girl and bad mom while Sophie has stayed relatively quiet, making only one statement on Instagram. Well… until this week.

Sophie stepped out for a casual girl dinner at, of course, Via Carota, with none other than the final nail in the JoBros reputation’s coffin, Taylor Swift herself. And the Internet exploded.

That smirk… you’re toast Joe Jonas!

Mere hours after their dinner, Sophie sued Joe and alleged that he was wrongfully withholding their children’s passports from her. This is going to be wild.

Sofia Vergara & Joe Manganiello. Sofia was always clear that she didn’t want any more children, but Joe thought he could change her mind, and now here we are. There are also a lot of blinds floating around that he is not a good man, so godspeed to Sofia.

(I guess we need to keep eyes on Jill and Joe.)

couples I’m sad to see go:

Lindsay Hubbard & Carl Radke. UGGGGHHHHH. For those who don’t torture themselves by watching the worst show on Bravo, Lindsay and Carl are on a show called Summer House that follows a group of friends who summer in the Hamptons. Carl and Lindsay have been on the show for six or seven years now, and we’ve watched them have a summer fling, break up, become best friends, date other people, get sober, and fall in love. It was a real best friends-to-lovers arc for you BookTok people. The other people on Summer House (I struggle to call them friends of Lindsay and Carl) doubted their relationship from the beginning and put them through the wringer last season. But watching Carl, a retired fuckboi, admitting he wanted that WITH LINDSAY was a win for girls in their 30s and melted my heart.

Allegedly, he blindsided Lindsay by waiting to break up with her while they were filming the last weekend of the upcoming season of Summer House. They were supposed to get married in Mexico in just a few weeks. :(

Bill Murray (72) & Kelis (43). With a relationship announcement around Memorial Day and a break up before Labor Day, this was clearly nothing more than a summer fling, but I’ll forever be grateful for the iconic Bossip headline.

couples I’m not sad to see go:

Britney Spears & Sam Asghari. He has bad vibes. I’ve always said it.

Danny Masterson & Bijou Phillips. Lots of yuck.

couples who caused a lot of drama when they broke up:

Ariana Grande & Dalton Gomez, and thus, Ethan Slater & Lilly Jay. You know that meme that goes around every fall that’s like, “Outside of 9/11, what's an event you lived through that you'll never forget where you were when it happened?” People always respond with big sports wins or celebrity deaths or natural disasters or ya know, January 6th. Mine is when I found out that Ariana Grande divorced her real estate boyfriend for the man who played Spongebob in Spongebob the Musical on Broadway.

I do not care to involve myself in Broadway or any kind of theater kid drama. But. Here we go. Ariana and Ethan met on the set of Wicked (the movie) where they fell in love and separated from their partners. A tale that is not uncommon in Hollywood. ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE ARIANA GRANDE. Like she literally told us.

Kevin Costner & Christine Baumgartner. While I don’t watch Yellowstone and will probably never watch Yellowstone, this feels like it should (or at least could) be a plot on Yellowstone. They both seem positively nutty.

Sophia Bush & Grant Hughes. For only being married a year, a lot of internet people were gutted over this for reasons I don’t fully understand, except that Sophia’s wedding dress was perfect.

couples who have broken up and gotten back together:

Kim Zolciak & Kroy Biermann. Not me googling “quotes about falling out of love,” for an intro to Kim and Kroy’s relationship demise. Embarrassing.

For years, I have watched Kim, Kory, and their busload of children with childlike wonder. It was fascinating to try to understand how they could sustain not only their lifestyle, but their unhealthy obsession with one another. Spoiler: they couldn’t.

All the wigs in the world couldn’t save them 😔

Honestly, since I started writing this they’ve broken up and gotten back together twice. I believe in my heart of hearts that they’ll get back together. Their love knows no bounds.

Keke Palmer & Darius Jackson. He publicly called her out for being too sexy at an USHER concert, leading the internet to wonder, where can you look sexy if not an Usher concert? Keke clapped back, did a bunch of promo being like, “Hi, yea, I’m sexy,” and now they’re back together.

Natalie Portman & Benjamin Millepied. Ben had an affair with a 26-year-old climate activist (Greta Thurnberg’s BFF), which is just soooo something that would happen to Natalie Portman.

Halle Bailey & DDG. Godspeed to this couple.

Jacob Elordi & Olivia Jade. She said, “You’d be nothing without me, honey.”

couples who have quietly broken up:

Pete Davidson & Sui Wonders. He did run a car into a house.

Hugh Jackman & Deborra-lee Jackman. They were married for 27 years, but a lot of gay twitter is saying they have seen this coming. I don’t really have much of a comment.

Bella Hadid & Marc Kalman. I don’t know who this man is.

couples who are definitely real and still together (allegedly):

Kylie Jenner & Timothee Chalamet. I have gone back and forth a million times on these two. Are they real? Are they fake? Is this Kris Jenner’s doing? Literally, when I was first making this list, I got the TMZ alert that they were at Beyonce’s Birthday Concert (yea, these take me a while). When I saw the videos of Kylie searching for the cameras at SoFi Stadium and planting a kiss on Timothee’s greyhound-like jaw, I was like, sure, this could be love. But then Kris took it a step too far. And while I have retired from Kardashian reporting, I can still read Kris like a book. When I saw Kylie and Timmy posted up courtside at the US Open Championship, I was like, oh, that has Kris Jenner written allllll over it. I don’t know which acting is worse—Timothee’s impending role as Willy Wonka, or whatever’s happening in these PDA clips.

I’m the guy in the white.

couples who broke up but I can’t talk about anymore:

Tom Sandoval & Ariana Madix. And subsequently, Tom Sandoval & Raquel Leviss. If you somehow haven’t heard about Scandoval so far in 2023, please call me.

couples who I don’t think about who also broke up:

Billie Eilish & Jesse Rutherford. Rami Malek & Lucy Boynoton. Kaitlyn Bristowe & Jason Tartick. Jeremy Allen White & Addison Timlin. Reese Witherspoon & Jim Toth. Avril Lavigne & Tyga. Rosalía & Rauw Alejandro. Tina Knowles & Richard Lawson. Justin Trudeau & Sophie Grégoire. Hunter Schafer & Dominic Fike. Teyana Taylor & Iman Shumpert.

May they all find happiness and even more scandalous relationships. <3