Look, we all know that a marriage is a complicated thing that, in general, can only be understood by the two people inside of it. The same goes for the end of a marriage. Who are we to judge what is a good reason to get divorced and what isn’t? Take R. Kelly and his ex-wife Andrea, for example. The pair were married for twelve years before divorcing in 2009. As an outsider, you might say that your husband getting caught allegedly having sex with and peeing on a minor in 2002 because of footage that he himself videotaped is an excellent reason to divorce, but that wasn’t the case for Andrea — everyone has their own limitations on the pesky husband-wife stuff that they’re willing to put up with, and Andrea’s limits extended beyond a urine fetish.
Turns out, the real reason for the demise of the Kelly marriage — a reason written about by R. Kelly in his new memoir Soulacoaster, The Diary of Me which, btw, we should definitely be reading for the Jezebel Book Club — is the same reason so many of us feel like something’s missing in our own lives: Ryan Gosling.
Well, sort of. R. Kelly writes that he finally knew his marriage to Andrea was over after watching the movie version on Nicholas “Ernest Hemingway” Sparks’ romantic melodrama The Notebook:
As the film credits started to roll, I couldn’t move. I burst into tears. People walking past me patted me on the back, trying to console me. ‘The Notebook’ was beautiful, and I was crying because its hero and heroine had died together. But I was also crying because I remembered a Valentine’s Day — when a helicopter dropped a rainfall of roses — that had come and gone … My marriage had died. And there was nothing I could do to bring it back.
Admit it, R. Kelly. You ended the marriage because you realized that Andrea could never be The Gos.