Why Is Everyone Quietly Divorcing Now?

Delete those Notes app breakup announcements and requests to “respect our privacy during this difficult time.” The latest trend in celebrity divorce is far more low-key.

In the last few years, an increasing number of A-listers have taken the “let’s separate and tell them later (even years later) route.”

The latest example? Natalie Portman, who “quietly filed” and finalized her divorce from ballet beau Benjamin Millepied earlier this month, after nearly 12 years of marriage and two children together. (Rumors about Millepied’s alleged affair last year were a little less quiet, at least in the French tabloid press.)

Non-celebrities, too, are opting for less flashy divorces, said Lynda Hinkle, a family law attorney practicing in New Jersey.

“I think it’s part of a backlash to how being so public about your personal life has negatively influenced so many people, particularly celebrities,” Hinkle told HuffPost.

“There was a time in our culture where everything was spoken of in whispers, then we leapt to everything being announced in a press release,” she said. “Even for non-celebrities, social media allows for big, grandiose announcements that reach a wide audience.”

For “normies,” divorce parties, divorce cakes and divorce selfies (co-starring your ex if the split was amicable) were big around 2010 and the years that followed.

The divorce party era feels dated now, but it helped usher in a more positive, accepting attitude about divorce, said Morghan Richardson, a partner and family law attorney at Tarter, Krinsky & Drogin LLP in New York City. Divorce went from taboo to something that’s talked about and normalized, to something to celebrate.

“It helped remove the stigma that many people feel, which is a good thing,” Richardson said. “Half of all marriages fail after all, so should we continue to perpetuate so many negative stereotypes about divorcees?”

Now, we’ve boomeranged back to quietly calling it quits, said Carla Schiff Donnelly, a divorce attorney in Pittsburgh.

“Divorce parties and divorce cakes seemed to be hot more than five years ago, but I have not had a client throw a divorce party in the last few years,” she said.

Instead of taking divorce selfies, people are more likely to discreetly delete photos of their ex-spouse. They might not say a word about changes in their relationship status until they’re posting about someone new. The era of cryptically posting a quote card that subtly shades your ex is dying out. (Sorry, Khloe Kardashian.)

Of course, there are plenty of people who still feel celebratory about ending unhappy marriages and starting over with their inner circle, but Hinkle thinks that generally, divorcees are more reticent, or at least less raucous, when it comes to social media posts.

“I honestly think that’s a very important step forward, especially if there’s children from those marriages,” she said.

“For celebrities in particular, it’s quite horrible to have to experience your family trauma in tabloids,” she continued. “Kyle Richards from ‘The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’ and her husband, Mauricio, seemed to be trying to do a quiet divorce, but it blew up, and it seems like their children were very hurt in that process, something they were trying to avoid.”

Elle Silver of Los Angeles got a divorce in 2018, arguably at the tail end of the divorce party era. After 10 years of marriage, she went against the wave and opted for a quiet divorce.

“I felt like I’d be opening myself up to the judgments of many acquaintances if I posted about it,” she told HuffPost. “I’d had a big, splashy wedding and had gone on a two-monthlong honeymoon where my ex and I traveled the world,” she said.

“This elicited some envy from my acquaintances, so to then admit that it didn’t work out for us ― I felt that I was opening myself up to be gossiped about and even laughed at,” she added.

The divorce was traumatic enough, and in her vulnerable state, Silver didn’t feel like her personal life was anyone’s business.

“I was also still friends with my ex’s family on social media, so I had to be careful what I said,” she said. “It could have turned into a gossip fest ― about him and what went wrong ― and I just wanted to avoid that.”

Jenifer Foley, a founding partner of Alter Wolff Foley & Stutman LLP, a New York City-based family and matrimonial law firm, has a theory on the quiet separation fad. She thinks the fact that divorce is no longer stigmatized liberates people from having to defensively announce whose “fault” it was or play dirty on social media.

“That’s a good thing because when posting to social media sites using ‘friends only,’ those posts can become known to the other spouse (or the children) through friends of friends of friends, and they can have an impact during the divorce and in the future, especially for the children,” she said.

Even without custody implications, publicly sharing private information can also impact a judge’s impression of a litigant, who “instead of finding ways to resolve the case, seems to be putting time, energy, and resources into publicly bashing the other spouse,” Foley said.

Richardson thinks the quiet divorce trend speaks to another impulse, too: not wanting your divorce to define you.

“Being divorced does not have to become a person’s main feature, which is also a positive thing,” she said. “With Meryl Streep, for instance, literally no one would think about divorce or separation when you bring her up. She has too many other accomplishments, so there really isn’t a need to discuss it.”

Richardson doesn’t believe there’s a right or wrong answer for how to approach announcing your divorce. Some want to toast a new beginning with their Instagram followers (hopefully in a non-ex-bashing way). Some want to make sure that their friends or followers know of the status change, especially if they decide to start dating again. Others simply delete photos and edge their spouse out of view on social media, and over time it becomes apparent.

“Ultimately, whatever feels comfortable is the right path,” Richardson said.