It was just in September that Jeremy Renner confirmed he married Sonni Pacheco, the mother of his daughter. And now, barely three months later, Pacheco has filed for divorce. The court documents reveal they were married for 10 months (consider it a 2014 Limited Edition Marriage), much of which Renner spent out of the country working on Avengers: Age of Ultron and Mission: Impossible 5. So, you know. Typical Hollywood marriage, really.
But this is Jeremy Renner, and Jeremy Renner is MESSY. I’ve always said it—he’s a disaster and it makes him good for gossip. So of course his divorce is going to be Maximum Messy, and Pacheco wasted no time in spilling the mess everywhere. Her court papers include accusations of “fraud” and that Renner stole her passport and identification documents, preventing her from leaving the country (she’s Canadian). See? MESSY.
Could there be any more inflammatory word than “fraud”? It plays directly into the maybe-gaybe rumors that have plagued Renner for years, which is probably the entire point. Pacheco filed first, and that matters. Renner is now firmly on defense, forced to respond to every accusation leveled by Pacheco, no matter how spurious or fantastic, including claims of fraud. It’s about their prenup—Pacheco wants it disregarded on grounds of “fraud”.
Language aside, asking to ignore a prenup isn’t unusual. During college I worked for an estate lawyer in Los Angeles and saw a lot of prenups and I learned two things about them: 1) Prenups are tough to enforce in California; and 2) if you do come up against a “challenge-proof” prenup, your best bet is to claim it’s in some way fraudulent and hope the judge nixes the entire document. So Sonni Pacheco signed a sh*tty, probably challenge-proof, prenup.
Which isn’t surprising. Renner dictated the terms of their relationship, and they’ve never been in Pacheco’s favor. He has the power in the relationship—he’s the one with money, he’s the one with privilege and access. Earlier in the year I pointed out that their dynamic was odd, and given that he’s the famous one, the one most likely to be interviewed and asked personal questions, it would be him setting that tone. So he gets to dictate how the public sees—or doesn’t see—his relationship. Not hers. Not theirs. HIS.
But does that extend to cruelty? This is where Lainey and I went back and forth about the accusation that Renner stole Pacheco’s passport and documents. Of course, if he did that, it’s monstrous. But my experience with Renner is that while he’s reckless and faithless, he’s not cruel. And my experience with contentious custody cases tells me that Renner’s comeback is most likely to be that Pacheco threatened to abscond with their kid and that’s why he took her documents (assuming he did and they’re not like, in a safety deposit box). So I’m going to need more than the initial court filing to make up my mind on that one.
I’m sure this is only the beginning and that things will get even messier once Renner begins filing responses. For some it will be easy to label Pacheco a golddigger, for others, it’s not hard to envision Renner as a power-abusing vindictive creep trying to control his baby mama. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle—two people with nothing in common except a sex drive accidentally procreated, made each other miserable for a while, and are now punishing one another in court for whatever bullsh*t garbage they did behind closed doors.
