Emily Ratajkowski ‘Loves a Divorce Story,’ Says No One Should Stay in an Unhappy Marriage

"I know a lot of people who are unhappily married for a very long time because they’re so afraid of divorce," the recently divorced model said on her podcast.

By Kylie Cheung | February 1, 2023 | 4:10pm

Celebrities

Emily Ratajkowski ‘Loves a Divorce Story,’ Says No One Should Stay in an Unhappy Marriage

On this week’s High Low With EmRata, host Emily Ratajkowski—recently separated from her cheating husband—spoke out on the topic of divorce, which is still somehow controversial in the year 2023. Speaking to her guest, actor Tommy Dorfman, Ratajkowski said that “every time” she hears about someone getting a divorce, “I have to remind myself that I have to be like, ‘Oh that’s sad’—I literally say to people, ‘Good for you.’”

Divorce, Ratajkowski explains, isn’t “a sad thing.” What is sad? “I know a lot of people who are unhappily married for a very long time because they’re so afraid of divorce, and I don’t think that’s a good way to live,” she told Dorfman.

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The conversation on divorce and all its joys was sparked by Dorfman asking Ratajkowski what she did with her ring. (She kept it!) Dorfman, who’s also a divorcée, related to Ratajkowski’s pro-divorce positivity: “My ex-husband, who I’m really, really good friends with, would tell you, ‘This is the best thing that could have happened to us,’” she said, further calling divorce “a really brave thing.” The duo closed the episode with a hearty, “Cheers to divorce!”

Over the summer, amid reports that Ratajkowski’s husband of four years, Sebastian Bear-McClard, had serially cheated on her, the couple filed for divorce, and Ratajkowski liked a series of tweets dragging and calling Bear-McClard a cheater. Incidentally, around the same time time all that was happening, we saw something of a resurgence in conservative backlash to divorce. Various pundits and commentators suggested that giving women the option to supposedly swindle, marry, divorce, and thieve from wealthy men had been a mistake, and that we should visit our divorce laws to simply entrap women instead.

In the fall of 2021, newly elected Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) argued that people should even stay in “unhappy” or “maybe even violent” marriages for their kids’ sake—as if abusive partners aren’t a safety risk to children. And even if partners aren’t abusive, I can’t imagine that being unhappily married or perennially distressed about your marriage makes you a better parent.

To Ratajkowski’s point, divorce really is about happiness, and no-fault divorce gives women in particular agency within the institution of marriage and domestic life more broadly. And that’s clearly why more and more conservative men are shitting their pants over it! So, thank you EmRata. Team divorce for life.