We All Secretly Hope Jay and Bey Get Divorced

On Wednesday night, Jay Z and Beyoncé, who are so private, they refused to tell us why Jay Z was kicked repeatedly in an elevator by Beyoncé’s sister Solange—even though we really wanted to know, even though the pain of not knowing never subsides—once again showed movies of their daughter on a Jumbotron. If putting babies on Jumbotrons were a press release, by the way, it would read, “Please leave us alone. Our private lives are sacred. And also please enjoy these images of our daughter on a Jumbotron.”

Displaying one’s infant child on a Jumbotron seems like a strange reaction to being in the spotlight, rather like a homeopathic remedy given in unsuitably large quantities. My immediate thought, probably not original, was that they were trying to use the child as a sort of decoy: Look at the thing we wrought when we made mad, passionate pro-creative love, and of course we are still in love, because people with children who used to be really in love never fall out of it and get divorced. Gosh, here I am like every other Tom, Dick and Perez Hilton, analyzing Beyoncé and Jay Z’s marriage like I know what’s going on. I’m not a mind reader. I’m not one of the 300 or 400 people who, if imminent divorce is actually a secret, are being paid to manage it full time, while simultaneously ensuring that it is not a secret.

Sure, I could shut up about stuff I know nothing about, but how can one resist the new national pastime? And how can one deny they want the guessing game to be our national pastime? Seriously, if you’re not trying to figure out what it meant when Beyoncé changed the words in “Resentment” from “Been ridin’ with you for six years now” to “Been ridin’ with you for 12 years now,” or whether it’s really true that Beyoncé has been shopping around for her own apartment in New York City, or whether their distance on stage means that they’re splitting up or that they’re just plain sick of being paid millions of dollars to sing and dance, can you really call yourself an American?

The day after the news broke that Jay and Bey were having problems and were going to break up as soon as their tour ended, Twitter buzzed with pre-breakup anxiety-meltdown tweets, like (I’m paraphrasing), “No, I love Beyoncé and Jay Z they are too perfect don’t let it be true #distraught,” and, “Maybe Bey and Jay-Z are just going through a rough patch #fingerscrossed,” and, my favorite, “If Bey and Jay can’t make it, please tell me who can #sad #breakups #why.” They persist. Yeah, there’s the odd person who is like, “Hey, me and Beyoncé are going to be single moms together #cool.” But mostly not.

However, it seems abundantly clear that if two pop stars who have turned themselves into global brands can’t spend the rest of their lives together in wedded bliss in a nation where about half of all marriages end in divorce anyway, then there is no hope for anyone. And just because there are a few individuals out there who are upset for 45 seconds that Jay and Bey might indeed split up (I am going to go out on a limb and guess that none of these people are named Solange Knowles), most people are delighted.

Sorry for yet more unproven, random Jay-Bey theories, but I know this. How? Because I am a human being, and if I know one thing about human beings, it is that the only thing they love more than french fries, Law & Order: SVU and sleeping is when rich, hot people’s lives are revealed to secretly suck.

I additionally know this because when I went to Google “How many marriages end in divorce?,” I only got to “How many marriages” before Google kindly guessed the end of my question: “are sexless?” So. There are six 15-year-olds out there who don’t want Beyoncé and Jay Z to break up. Everyone else in America has circled Sept. 13, the final night of Jay and Bey’s On the Run tour, on their calendar in red. Between now and then, they will wake every morning at dawn, kneel by their bed and mutter, “God, please let those people who forced us to watch that “Partition” video in which they acted like being together for 11 years was so hot be so frickin’ over each other, because they so frickin’ deserve it.”

On second thought, maybe the Jumbotron was an act of generosity—Jay Z and Beyoncé’s way of saying, We live in a disgusting, exploitative and fame-obsessed world, and please allow us to signify the moment where this particular situation jumped the shark. Ten years from now, perhaps, Tavi Gevinson, interviewing Beyoncé for the last magazine in existence, will turn off her iPhone 18’s recording device, rest her vintage Mont Blanc pen pensively against her lip, lean across a marble table in a hotel bar and whisper, “Tell me, Beyoncé. Was the great Blue Ivy Jumbotronning of 2014 in fact rooted in a sort of meta, post-Warhol sensibility?” And Beyoncé will perhaps reply, “Oh, Tavi. I thought you’d never ask.”

Sarah Miller also writes for NewYorker.com and The Hairpin, among other outlets, and has published two novels, Inside the Mind of Gideon Rayburn and The Other Girl.