Going through a divorce is one of the hardest things anyone can do and when you're in the public eye, it can become much harder.
Editor's note: This article was originally published on November 18, 2022. It has since been updated.
No one gets married thinking they'll get divorced someday. Nobody plans to split up from the person they love the most and once wanted to spend the rest of their life with. When two individuals come to this decision, it's mostly after trying everything they could have to salvage their marriage. Sometimes, despite trying their best, it just doesn't work out for everyone.
Once a part of the band The Black Eyed Peas, singer Fergie ventured into a solo career in 2017. For her, that year was all about leaving the old behind for the new, and that included leaving her husband of eight years, actor Josh Duhamel. They had met in 2004 and dated for five years before tying the knot on January 10, 2009. They had gone through many challenges together, sometimes coming out stronger. But, eventually, the differences were too big for them to bridge the rift.
In 2012, after being married for three years, the mother-of-one told Oprah Winfrey that they tried therapy after tabloids said that Duhamel had cheated on her in 2009. "It was difficult," she said, according to E!News. "When you go through difficult times, it really makes you stronger as a unit, as a partnership. It does for us, anyways. Our love today is a deeper love, definitely."
"We're stronger today definitely because of anything difficult that's happened with us," she said. "We deal with it, we communicate; communicating's the most important thing," she had said.
The Transformers actor, 47, had also spoken lovingly about his wife. "I was attracted to her initially because of...how sexy she was and the hotness... But we haven't been together for nine years because of that. It's because she's, you know...we grew up in very similar ways, you know? We've both had to work for what we got. We're both Catholic. There were a lot of things that were really compatible between us. But at the end of the day, she's just an amazing girl," he told Oprah.
A year after the interview, the couple welcomed their first and only child, Axl, and have been loving parents to him. However, insiders told E!News that the couple always had separate lives and there was nothing common between them. Eventually, in 2017 February, the couple went separate ways.
"This was a long time coming and they've been trying to sort everything out this past year," the source said.
They finally announced to the world in September 2017 that they were parting and when Fergie spoke to TV host Wendy Williams about it, she teared up. "It wasn’t my plan. I wanted to stay married forever," the Double Dutchess hitmaker said, as per People. "I love Josh, he’s the father of my child," she added. "We forever have that project together and we’re doing the best we can," said the Fergalicious singer.
The famous couple had told People in a statement, "With absolute love and respect we decided to separate as a couple earlier this year. To give our family the best opportunity to adjust, we wanted to keep this a private matter before sharing it with the public. We are and will always be united in our support of each other and our family."
Now, their main focus is to make sure that their son doesn't feel any trauma by their break-up. They are still a team and very respectful of each other. The Safe Haven actor was quoted by Today as saying that they still have a "good relationship." "She is great," he said. "She is a great mom," he added.
In another interview, when their divorce was still not public, when an interviewer asked Duhamel about the best part of marriage, he said that "it was a loaded question." "A relationship starts one way, even when you get married, and it goes through a whole evolution — ups and downs and back-ups," he said, according to Us Weekly. However, he had said that it only gets better with time.
They are proving to the world that divorce doesn't mean that they need to hate each other, and they can calmly co-parent once the hurt is out of the way. They finalized their divorce in 2019 and took the time to figure out if this was indeed the right decision. And, only when they were sure they moved ahead, a source told E!News.
References:
https://www.today.com/parents/josh-duhamel-talks-fergie-divorce-co-parenting-t119881
https://people.com/music/fergie-wanted-to-stay-married-to-josh-duhamel-forever/
https://www.eonline.com/news/880139/fergie-and-josh-duhamel-break-up-what-went-wrong
https://www.eonline.com/news/355153/fergie-talks-josh-duhamel-infidelity-rumors-with-oprah
