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Jenna Dewan and Channing Tatum have handled their divorce with so much grace and kindness, it’s been nice to see. As a divorced person who did it relatively amicably, when I see celebrities handling things so well I feel like I know how hard it must have been behind the scenes. People don’t typically get divorced without trying so many times to make it work. It’s not happy, easy or pleasant and you don’t walk away from that without a lot of sadness and hurt. Jenna has so far been very positive about her divorce, as has Channing. Even in their official court documents you could tell they were striving to get along. Jenna did an interview with People where she hinted at how hard it was. She’s promoting her new wellness book,Gracefully You: Finding Beauty and Balance in the Everyday</em>, which comes out next week. You can tell she walks the walk.
“It was a hard journey of growth and change,” Dewan tells PEOPLE in the latest issue. “Ultimately now I can honestly say that I’m living in a very joyful new place in my life, and I’m happy about it.”
“I always say no one gets married to hopefully get divorced,” she says of deciding to end her nearly nine-year marriage to Channing Tatum. They share daughter 6-year-old Everly together.
“People grow and they change and sometimes they don’t grow and change together. So it wasn’t a overnight thing that happened,” she says. “There was no one event. I think it was just a slow realization that we wanted different things.”
Their initial separation was hard for everyone involved.
“I was just gutted. It was so difficult for me,” she says. “It was the loss of an idealistic future for myself and my life. What does that now look like for me? Where do I begin? I met him when I was 24, I didn’t know life without Chan.”
Dewan says she leaned on her closest friends and family for support, but ultimately had to put in the work herself.
“You would never expect your life to take a turn the way it does,” she says. “But embracing it and starting fresh and figuring out what you want in life and what means a lot to you and what’s meaningful, what is going to make you happy,” she says. “I’m grateful that I now am at a place where I understand myself and what I want and I’m happy about this new chapter. I’m in a place of joy.”
“We’re all aware that it’s a new normal, we’re all getting used to it,” she says. “You can still have a relationship and just because the forms change as to who you are to each other, it doesn’t take away from the love that we had or that we shared all those years.”
Dewan hopes that sharing her journey might help others in similar situations.
“It wasn’t easy necessarily, to get here, which nothing is easy in life, right?” she says. “I had to put in the work. This doesn’t just happen overnight. But just to know that it’s possible, and your perspective on life can change. It can change for the better, and you’ll be fine.”
That’s one of the nicest statements about a divorce that I’ve ever read! I’m really looking forward to reading her book. Both Jenna and Channing are coupled up with other people now, Channing is with Jesse J and Jenna is expecting her second child with Steve Kazee. I like how she told her story, by focusing on herself, on what she went through and how she’s moving forward. You can also hear the gratitude she has for Channing. She didn’t blame, get into specifics or even subtly shade him. That’s how both of them moved on so well. They were healed, focused on the future and ready for another relationship, not angry and trying to rub it in each other’s faces. (See Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth.)
Steve gushes about Jenna in this post it’s adorable!
I always think Jenna looks like what I imagine Megan Fox’s sister looks like…if she had a sister.
I’m happy for her and her new guy. He seems like quite the catch. I used to love her and Channing together but I have so much respect for how they’ve separated and continued to take the high road. She seems really really happy!
She seems happier with her new guy. I think at first she and Channing seemed like equal partners, but after awhile she definitely just became Mrs. Channing Tatum, and I don’t think that worked for her. She shines on her own.
I love what her new husband said about becoming a step-dad to Jenna’s daughter. It really is such a sweet and beautiful way to talk about that whole process.
Honestly, it makes me feel so grateful this morning for my own sweet husband, who has been the most incredible step-dad for my son. He describes it similarly–and says that he didn’t even realize he needed us both until he found us.
We’ve added another little boy of our own to the mix, and 7+ years after my very miserable and hard divorce, I know that I’m where I’m supposed to be. I’ll definitely be grabbing her book! The journey from there to here really changed me in ways I never could’ve foreseen.
Also, CBers, for some reason after my last phone system update my avatar thing never shows up anymore. But it’s me, I promise!
She’s just so darn likable, crystals and all!
I like Jenna, she seems genuine and thoughtful. I like everything she said here too. I feel like the split was probably a little messier than she’s saying (which I get, she’s guarding her privacy) but they seem like they’re in a good place now and will co-parent well.
Channing really dropped off the radar though, didn’t he? He was everywhere for a while, and now hasn’t had a movie or anything in a while I don’t think.
Jenna is such a cool person, and when I see her do her thing on the lip sync show, I am convinced she’s very secure in who she is. Good going, Jenna! Enjoy the life you are making.