Hollywood Divorce Has A New Look, And Somehow It’s Worse Than Ever

Actor Frankie Muniz earlier this month posted a video of himself dancing with his soon-to-be-ex-wife to announce his divorce. Everyone understandably found this odd, so he deleted it.

For a few hours, though, it was up: The “Malcolm in the Middle” star turned race car driver, mid-divorce, dancing joyfully to “Check Yes, Juliet” with his former bride. The worst part was their young son dancing right along with them like nothing was wrong. 

Muniz seemed to think fans would find it sweet, but thankfully common sense put him back in his place. Commenters called the spectacle sad and strange, especially with a small child unknowingly celebrating the demise of his stable home life. Muniz quickly pulled the clip down under an avalanche of backlash.

His almost-ex, Paige Price, was mad about it. She insisted that two adults who can still function as a team shouldn’t be mocked for their choices.

“Frankie, I am so sorry that you felt the need to delete an old fun video of our family because people are so cruel to you. This world is so f*cked … divorce is bad, sure — it’s not like we’re excited about it … but we’re two adults who know how to be on the same team. I can’t believe people could scrutinize that,” Price wrote under the revised version of their divorce announcement.

Divorce isn’t something to take lightly, but celebrities have been doing this for years. In 2014, Gwyneth Paltrow ended her 10-year marriage to Chris Martin with a phrase that briefly took over pop culture. They would “consciously uncouple,” they wrote, and continue co-parenting with the same privacy they’d tried to maintain as a couple. It was mocked mercilessly at the time, eventually becoming a punchline for how out-of-touch celebrities use therapy speak to prove they’re better than us plebs.

This type of thinking about marriage hasn’t changed in Tinseltown. Now in 2026, celebs are often trying to sell divorce as an amicable rebrand, a decision two enlightened adults make together for the good of everyone. The kids are said to be the focus even when they clearly are not.

There’s another version of this phenomenon that goes even further. Last month, country singer Jelly Roll (real name Jason DeFord) and his wife of a decade, Bunnie XO (real name Alisa Andrea Carter), announced they were divorcing. Weeks later, Bunnie XO told her podcast audience that the split changed nothing about their plan to pursue IVF together. 

They’d call the baby “Nugget,” she said, and raise the child as one big happy family regardless of the marriage’s end. The former stripper said she and DeFord were “trauma bonded” after going through infertility and didn’t think divorce was a good enough reason not to have a baby together.

She also talked about the fight that ended their marriage. 

“On Mother’s Day, we had a little bit of an argument, which I don’t think the details are necessary,” she said. “And, in that argument, I was so fed up and so tired that I just looked at him and said, ‘Well, then file the f*cking divorce papers.’”

So he did.

Now the couple is choosing to bring a child into the world despite getting divorced — because that’s what they want to do. At another point Bunnie XO said she couldn’t understand why she experienced infertility, arguing that it wasn’t fair for some people to be able to have children if she could not. 

“You get so mad at God, because you’re like, ‘Why is it so easy for people who don’t deserve children to just be able to just pop them out?’” she said, clarifying that she and DeFord are “two people who really want a baby together.”

Infertility is brutal, there’s no question. But planning to co-parent a newborn with someone you no longer call your spouse treats marriage and family as two separate life goals when really they were meant to exist together. In the same house, preferably.

That’s where celebrities get it so very wrong. Paltrow pitched her conscious uncoupling as proof of a new, peaceful version of divorce. Muniz and Price are asking the public to believe a marriage bond can end with an upbeat dance number and smiles. And Jelly Roll and Bunnie XO are going further still, arguing that a lifelong commitment can be severed without affecting children, even children who haven’t exactly joined the family yet.

Every one of these stories is told from the adults’ point of view. Muniz’s son probably didn’t think much of the dancing video, even if the internet saw it for the tragedy it was. Jelly Roll and Bunnie XO don’t seem concerned about the reality of raising a newborn in a broken home.

There are valid reasons for divorce, but the one thing Hollywood forgot is that even when that’s the case, it’s always a tragedy, not a gentle breaking apart. At the very least, no one should be dancing.

***

This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.