When breaking up is easy to do
In front of a hooting internet, flashing cameras, and sneering print media, but because they say they are “consciously uncoupling” instead of splitting up, everyone points and laughs.
Yes of course it sounds pretentious, but anything done consciously is better than done in a blind fit of rage, right? Uncoupling sounds smooth and peaceful, a sort of sliding away from each other gently, with awareness. Given the family fall out from unconscious couples going at each other with toxic lawyers fuelling years of toxic resentment, perhaps conscious uncoupling ought to be part of the national curriculum so that future generations are better at it than us.
Who knows why Chris and Gwynnie have parted after 11 years of marriage and two children together. In an hour-long BBC radio interview to promote his new album out on May 16, Chris Martin did a very unblokey thing and talked about his feelings and inner life, but in such an opaque way that we are still none the wiser; which again, is rule number one of conscious uncoupling – don’t blab your head off to the media.
Instead, Martin remained entirely non specific: “I wouldn’t use the word breakdown, this was more a realisation about trying to grow up… if you can’t open yourself up, you can’t appreciate the wonder inside. You can be with someone wonderful, but because of your issues you can’t let that be celebrated in the right way. What changed for me was that I don’t want to go through life being scared of it, being scared of love, being scared of rejection, being scared of failure. If you don’t let love in then you can’t really give it back.”
Which all sounds lovely, while remaining blankly discreet. At no point does he blurt out that he did it with a groupie and his missus got wind of it, or that she’d got it on with her personal trainer, or that one or both of them had become over fond of an addictive substance. This is Chris and Gwyneth, a macrobiotic yoga couple who named their eldest child after a fruit. Theirs was never going to be a vicious break-up.
They may be the first to use the term “conscious uncoupling” when they announced their separation in March, but they are not the first couple in the public eye to have a civilised break-up. Russell Brand broke Katy Perry’s heart, but has always spoken glowingly of her in interviews, and even in stand-up performances, has remained resolutely respectful. Demi Moore and Bruce Willis remained such close friends while co-parenting their daughters that they attended each other’s subsequent weddings (although Moore’s subsequent breakup with Ashton Kutcher was so traumatic it landed her in rehab).
Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis, who separated after 14 years, did so with minimum fuss, as did Liz Hurley and Hugh Grant all those years ago — their separation was professionally affable and stiff upper lip, exactly as one would expect. Jude Law and Sienna Miller were driven to distraction by the News of the World phone hacking and a paparazzi pack that hunted Miller like hounds after a fox, but their two break-ups — despite the first one being brought about by Law’s sexual betrayal — never involved any muck slinging. Al and Tipper Gore were graceful about their ending after a long marriage, as were Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas. Sarah Ferguson and Prince Andrew set the royal standard for remaining friends after marriage, unlike the car crash breakup of Charles and Diana.
Breaking up with dignity in the public eye really matters. It influences public perception for a long time after, especially if the couple projected a genuine love bond to the rest of us. Everyone wants love to triumph, so when it doesn’t, its public dismantling needs to be graceful.
It needs to fall into the category of “good” break-ups — see above — or at least, neutral ones.
It is hardly a collective romantic tragedy every time George Clooney breaks with someone (although this could change, given his recent engagement); nor do we weep when we hear that Jennifer Lopez has shrugged off another husband.
Simon Cowell is surrounded by friendly ex partners, which rather humanises him. And for those who have mistake marriages that last 10 minutes — from Britney Spears to Sinead O’Connor — there is hardly enough time for any rage to build up.
But then there are the “oh-god-I-can’t-bear-to-look” breakups. The ones that cause you to shudder at how any two adults could behave so hideously, and yet there they are, publicly melting down, hurling dirty laundry, using lawyers like blunt instruments, as their kids look on bewildered, and the media reflects it all back, blinding and distorted.
The king and queen of the appalling breakup are Charles Saatchi and Nigella Lawson. There was nothing whatsoever conscious about their uncoupling at that Mayfair restaurant.
As public sympathy for Lawson soared after those photos of his hands around her throat, Saatchi went into revenge mode, getting his child involved, and going to great lengths to ruin her reputation, which backfired entirely. Lawson is regarded more fondly than ever, whereas he is now a public bogey man.
Several prominent men feature is a series of terrible breakups. Mel Gibson was so abusive to his much younger partner Oksana Grigorieva that he was recorded making racist rants, and his career subsequently nosedived.
Alec Baldwin was also recorded being vile, after a long, ugly fight with his ex Kim Basinger over their access to their daughter, which culminated with Baldwin leaving shockingly abusive messages to his daughter on a voicemail. This was duly made public. Ewwww.
Charlie Sheen and Brooke Mueller’s break-up was like something from a bad cartoon, involving the police, legal teams, barring orders, and a tone of substance misuse. Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee Jones had similar bust-ups, but you always got the feeling that they had actually loved each other at some point, amidst the excess.
The prize for creepiest breakup goes to Tom Cruise and his ex-wife Katie Holmes. Neither party has spoken publicly about their break up — and she hasn’t opened up about being married to the Church of Scientology.
However, the prize for cashing in on breaking up goes, by some distance, to Katie Price. Here is a one-woman break-up industry, who has made a career out of public slanging matches, and gone some way to keep a large section of the print media in business. We ought to thank her for her support, really, as she offers world exclusive after world exclusive about who she has dumped this week, and why, and how they are all devastated and rebuilding their lives and moving on and never more in love and devastated and on it goes, in a revolving door of magazine covers. Not so much conscious uncoupling as conscious cashing in with a bewildering variety of ex-footballers, ex-pop singers, ex-cage fighters. Katie Price is a cottage industry of relationship drama. Perhaps she ought to give Gwyneth Paltrow a call.
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