By stacy lee kong

Until this week, I had zero opinions about Joe Jonas. (Not my era, not my boyband.) Now? I kinda despise him, tbh! This week, the middle Jonas Brother and his PR team has been executing a super heavy-handed campaign to paint his wife, Sophie Turner, as a bad mother amid the recent dissolution of their marriage. Starting over the weekend, Jonas has been leaking stories about Turner’s alleged partying and (allegedly) calling up the paparazzi to capture him performing fatherhood in public—and while it’s interesting to wonder why he’s so determined to craft this narrative (he’s gotta be trying to get ahead of a much worse story about him, right?) and analyze the events of the past week from a media literacy perspective, it’s also worth thinking about what this news cycle can tell us about our society’s attitude toward motherhood, and how the public’s almost totally unified rejection of Jonas’ attempts might actually be a sign of progress. So… let’s get into it.

Joe Jonas’ post-divorce PR strategy is… not very subtle

Here’s how it all went down: On August 27, some fans noticed Jonas was not wearing his wedding ring and looked “down and sad,” sparking breakup rumours. At some point after that, a photo of Turner surfaced where she was also not wearing her wedding ring. Then, on Sept. 3, TMZ reported that Jonas was looking for a divorce lawyer in L.A. and was “on the cusp of filing for divorce.” What’s more, according to a ‘source’ (most likely someone on Jonas’ team, or at least in his corner), “the couple has had ‘serious problems’ for at least six months… Over the last three months, Joe has been caring for their two young children ‘pretty much all of the time,’ even as his band was touring. We're told Joe currently has both kids, as the group plays around the U.S.”

I see we’re really starting out strong with the implication that Turner is a bad, and perhaps even neglectful, mother who abandons her children. Of course, what this source doesn’t mention is that she’s currently in the U.K. shooting Joan, an ITV drama about real-life jewel thief Joan Hannington, who was known as the godmother of London’s criminal underworld in the 80s. So, you know, just maybe she hadn’t abandoned her children. Maybe she was working in another country and they were with their other parent and extended family.

It got worse on Tuesday, when Jonas officially filed for divorce. Today.com got an exclusive first look at the petition for dissolution of marriage that Jonas filed in Miami Dade County, and as PR pro Lulu Cheng Meservey pointed out on X (formerly known as Twitter), this was very strategic. According to Meservey, who’s the former head of communications for Substack and current head of corporate affairs and communications at video game company Activision Blizzard, “since Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner’s divorce news became public a couple days ago, you can tell that Joe has been going on offense to control the narrative. Obviously he’s the one who filed for divorce, but on top of that, Today got an exclusive of the filing… What it means is that the filing was leaked to them specifically with a promise not to share with other outlets until Today got to report (ie, shape) the story first. In that story, the key narrative points first emerge: Joe initiated the divorce and has been taking care of the kids.”

The same day, Page Six reported that a “source close to the family” exclusively revealed that divorce was a “last resort” for him, saying, “he never wanted to break up his family, but he had to take what he felt was the best course of action for his girls.” Meanwhile, another source “with direct knowledge” (or, you know, Jonas’ hardworking PR rep, who must be tired sending all of these emails) told TMZ the reason the couple is splitting up is because “she likes to party, he likes to stay at home. They have very different lifestyles.”

… As a sidenote: That is basically the opposite of  everything we’ve heard this couple say about their respective approaches to fun over the past four years, but sure, sounds legit!

It gets even worse, though. By Wednesday, TMZ was again reporting (exclusively, of course) that “multiple sources who have direct contact with Joe tell TMZ ... Joe had access to a ring cam that he said captured Sophie saying and/or doing something that made him realize the marriage was over.” GASP. What could he have heard or seen???? Or, maybe this is a better question: where does he hope the public will go in their speculation about what he heard or saw?

Also on Wednesday, Jonas took his daughters out for breakfast at Sweet Butter Kitchen in L.A., which is only notable because this couple has been so private thus far that we don’t know what their youngest child is named, nor do they post photos of their children—in fact, in May, when Turner accidentally posted a clip of their then-two-year-old daughter, Willa, on Instagram Stories, she not only deleted it, but actually posted an apology. But yes, of course it makes sense that he’d suddenly be publicly photographed in “dad mode” the same week he files for divorce and starts doing his very best to paint the mother of his children as neglectful. Such a coincidence!

This is right out of a very old playbook

Now, where have we seen this before? Oh yes: everywhere.

The way we think about motherhood is already super fraught. Mothers inhabit a mythic place in our cultural imaginations, almost becoming ciphers who function more as moral compasses and generic sources of inspiration than whole humans with their own desires, flaws and motivations. Unlike fathers, they are held to an impossible standard, expected to prioritize their children in every single way while also achieving career success, a loving partnership and strong friendships while also being support systems for their families, and also, somehow, making time for self-care. We believe that ‘good’ mothers are perpetually available, morally impeccable and totally undemanding. Conversely, in real life and pop culture, bad mothers are the worst kind of villain—and that explains the very popular tactic of trying to shape public opinion about a woman by implying she is not interested in becoming a mother, or if she has kids, that she’s failing at the role. 

Think about the Brad-Jen-Angelina love triangle of the early 2000s. As The Ringer’s Clare Malone argued last year in an episode of Just Like Us: The Tabloids That Changed America, a podcast about the celebrity news ecosystem of that time, while rumours of infidelity were what initially what captured people’s attention, what really gave that story legs was the question of motherhood. “Jen was the good girl, the one who deserved to have Brad’s babies. Angelina Jolie was settling down and getting everything that Jennifer Aniston, the good girl, deserved. It was, we should say, kind of an anti-feminist nightmare on the motherhood front, no matter how you felt about the whole cheating thing,” Malone said, before going on to explain that the motherhood discourse “narrowed the scope of who ‘deserves’ to be a mom—specifically, not a non-cuddly lady like Angelina Jolie… And of course, forever tying Jolie’s fertility to Jennifer Aniston’s put Jennifer Aniston in an unwinnable position: She was doomed to a decade of headlines about how she couldn’t get a man to give her kids. Later, of course, Jen’s baby narrative would curdle a bit, and she’d be accused of not wanting kids, thus conveniently placing the blame for the breakup on her head, not lovable old Brad’s.”

Of course, when Pitt and Jolie’s marriage eventually dissolved over his alleged abusive behaviour, his legal team portrayed her as a bad mother for speaking about her experiences, saying it humiliated, embarrassed and even potentially endangered their children. (And the fact that she was once a Hollywood wild child who didn’t behave the way our society thinks mothers ‘should’ behave is definitely fodder for the pro-Pitt crowd.)  Similarly, when Kim Kardashian began dating Pete Davidson, Kanye West’s behaviour was quite clearly an example of post-separation abuse, which included accusing her of barring him from seeing their children, something a ‘good’ mother wouldn’t do. Meanwhile, Kevin Federline and Jamie Spears have been waging an entire media campaign that attempts to portray Britney Spears as a bad mother, which feels particularly complicated considering the way her parenting was one of the ways her father justified placing her under a restrictive conservatorship in the first place.

I bring up these examples to point out that, even if it appears Jonas is only trying to score PR points, this deeply sexist behaviour is actually part of a long tradition of men weaponizing women’s behaviour, and that historically, painting women as ‘bad mothers’ was explicitly about punishment and control.

I’m fascinated at how dedicated Jonas’ team is to this narrative, especially since it’s not working

Annoyingly, some media outlets have still been amplifying Jonas’ message. TMZ and Page Six have uncritically repeated everything the ‘sources’ say, unsurprisingly. But they’ve also posted stories that bolster Jonas’ strategy. Page Six, for example, published a story on Wednesday about how Turner was been spotted “downing shots during a wild night out” just before Jonas filed for divorce—and even if they never use the words ‘bad’ or ‘mom,’ we can all tell that’s the implication, right? Meanwhile, the Daily Mail took the predictably Daily Mail route of covering this ‘revelation’ with a headline that claims, “Sophie Turner, 27, 'felt trapped in her marriage to Joe Jonas and wants to relive her youth' after marrying and having children young, friends say - as she's seen downing shots and £6.50 cocktails in Birmingham days before singer, 34, filed for divorce.” She… is 27, so I’m not sure that she needs to ‘relive’ her youth, but okay. Again, no mention of the words ‘bad’ or ‘mom,’ but the implication is certainly that she’s crass, vulgar and irresponsible. (Classy ladies drink more expensive cocktails, okay?)

Even Elle contributed to this media storm, though I think unintentionally, with an article that attempted to explain why the kids have been Jonas instead of Turner: “The girls, ages 3 and 1, have ‘more support’ living with Jonas, the source said. ‘She has been shooting which is why the kids have been with Joe. It’s just been easier because she’s been working for the kids to be with him because there’s some more support at home and on the road with his family. It’s something they both agreed was best.’” While this all makes sense, the headline (“Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner Reportedly ‘Agreed’ to Keep Kids in U.S. With Him Because of Her Work Schedule”) still implies there’s something unusual about a mother who puts work over caring for her children, even if said children are actually being cared for by their other parent and their extended family.

As writer EJ Dickson pointed out in Rolling Stone this week, “there is something unnecessarily mean and pointed and angry about the coverage of this divorce, and it seems to stem entirely from the assumption that public sympathies will naturally align with the handsome working dad over the young working mother. It also seems to be coming at a time when many appear to be harboring a tremendous amount of vitriol toward working mothers in general, who research shows are overwhelmingly burnt out and saddled with the vast majority of household labor… It is deeply bothersome that in 2023, the media—and, by extension, presumably Jonas’ team—made a calculated decision to capitalize on decades of right-wing-driven rhetoric bullying women who make a concerted effort to balance work with family, to behave as they are supposed to.”

But here’s where I differ from Dickson, who worries that Jonas’ campaign is working: I think most people are seeing right through his BS. As Cheng Meservey points out, no part of this strategy has been working in his favour: “The new ‘revelations’ about Sophie were too transparent (they could’ve only come from Team Joe), became too frequent (several in only two days), went too far (implying she’s a bad mom), and overall started to make Joe look like the aggressor… [and] the line of attack is out of touch with the prevailing mood among the women that make up the Jonas fanbase. That demographic is all about respecting women’s personal choices, appreciating the challenges of motherhood, being conscious of power dynamics in relationships, and supporting women in their careers. We’re coming off the summer of Barbie. A young woman trying to balance motherhood with work and life is going to draw more sympathy than criticism. Read the room, Joe.”

I’d add that it’s also a very good example of the Streisand Effect, which is basically: you should not call attention to things that you really don’t want people to pay attention to. Overwhelmingly, internet commenters aren’t just rejecting his team’s heavy-handed attempts to portray her as neglectful, selfish or bad, they’re turning that critique around on him. For example! Did you know that Jonas asked a then-14-year-old Gigi Hadid out when he was 20? (They’d eventually date when she was 20 and he was 25.) I did not, but now I’ve seen 27 tweets about it. Also, did you know Jonas has a long history of blaming women for his own actions? Again, I did not—until TikTok sleuths came with receipts. We shouldn’t underestimate the impact of this counter-narrative; as one of my friends said in the group chat, “I never had super strong feelings towards Joe, and now I hate him with a passion.”

Interestingly, Jonas’ team seems to be learning an important lesson, because they’ve cooled it on the leaked stories—which is perhaps connected to Turner’s team seemingly entering the chat. Apparently, according to a Thursday morning story on TMZ, “sources who were around Joe after the birth [of the couple’s second child],” he was not very supportive, especially when Turner didn’t want to go to events or to be photographed. Apparently, “Joe complained Sophie was MIA and felt she needed to get out more.”

While so much of this does feel like he said-she said gossip, I think it’s worth acknowledging that until very recently, Jonas’ strategy probably would have worked to turn public opinion against Turner, and not just among his fan base. That says a lot about the way we have historically looked at women’s role in society—and how early women begin internalizing those messages, even though they actively harm us. What’s more, the fact that a lot of people (of all genders) seem to be rejecting his campaign feels like evidence of some societal progress, at least. Which is surprising, but for once actually kind of nice to see?!

And Did You Hear About…

This really touching essay about listening to Taylor Swift in prison by Joe Garcia, who has been incarcerated for 20 years.

All the Vines we knew and loved.

Reporter Kat Tenbarge’s investigation on what happens to successful YouTubers after they’re ‘cancelled.’ (Spoiler: very little.)

The Tabi Swiper saga. (With bonus Vogue Q&A, obvs.)

Vulture’s recent exposé on the PR firm that’s hacking Rotten Tomatoes’ rating system to make sure its movies are certified fresh.  (Also, want some adjacent internet drama? Remember that part-time movie critic who went viral a few weeks ago for her terrible take on the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes, and who has advertised her willingness to accept payment for reviews? Well, it seems that she is also a Timothée Chalamet stan who’s losing her shit over him and Kylie Jenner making their public debut as a couple at Beyoncé’s LA concert earlier this week for very classist reasons and the posts are WILD.)

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