This is Joe Jonas hanging out with his brothers the other day. Joe was a big story last week after filing for divorce from Sophie Turner and all the reporting that was coming out suggesting that she was wasn’t present for her kids. And then that story in TMZ about whatever it was that Joe heard or so on the Ring camera. It’s the kind of misogynist f-ckery that has worked for other famous men but it didn’t seem to work for Joe because the culture was not having it. Now it’s about the backpedal.
At a Jonas Brothers concert on the weekend, Joe took a moment to address the crowd. Just before singing “Hesitate” which is about his relationship with Sophie, Joe said:
"It's been a crazy week. I just wanna say, look: If you don't hear it from these lips, don't believe it. Okay? Thank you, everyone, for your love and support. Me and my family love you guys."
I mean… I get it. Tabloids make sh-t up all the time, and if were dealing with reporting coming out of the Daily Mail here, it would be a whole other story. But this wasn’t the Daily Mail. It was TMZ that first broke the news that Joe had met with two divorce lawyers and that a divorce was imminent. Three days later Joe filed. Which means that TMZ is right. That their source was right. And it was in their original post where all this started, with that mention about Joe looking after the kids all the time.
But then again this is why celebrities do the leaking to outlets like TMZ. It’s plausible deniability. They can get their intended message out there while maintaining a certain distance. And then get up on stage and claim that they had nothing to do with it.
And yet, anyone who’s not blinded by fanaticism can reason that for TMZ to get a legal tip, about incoming legal proceedings, should be able to figure out that they weren’t just spinning a wheel and fabricating a whole narrative out of the blue. They were given solid info about the split. Whoever gave them that info also filled in some colour about WHY the split was happening. That could only come from someone inside – and since the story was unflattering to Sophie, Joe’s team is the only possible conclusion.
Now they realised they’ve miscalculated. So pulling the plausible deniability card and then revising the strategy is the next move. Page Six had a post today about how the Jonas family was “pulling for Joe and Sophie” and that Joe was “touchy and sensitive" in the months preceding the breakup. Translation: the Jonas family is not meangirling Sophie and poor Joe, let’s feel bad for him, he’s going through a lot.
Which I’m sure he is! Divorce is hard! Divorce is sad! Divorce is painful!
But you make it worse when you play ill-considered media games and take your sh-t public. That said, he caught a break from all the other messy celebrities over the last few days like Ashton and Mila, and also Drew Barrymore. What is it with the bad PR strategies lately?
Sophie, meanwhile, is staying mostly quiet and doing her thing. TMZ published new photos today of her in Spain while working on her new series.
