Elizabeth Gilbert is best known as the author of Eat Pray Love, one of the most indulgent of the pseudo-spiritual memoirs from that era. Gilbert basically got paid a lot of money from a publisher to travel around the world, look for a boyfriend and wrap it up in some kind of spiritual reawakening. Gilbert is also known for having a messy personal life – in Eat Pray Love, she dumps her husband for no real reason before she goes on her spiritual jaunt, where she met a guy, Jose Nunes. She and Jose were married for nine years until she cheated on him and dumped him (in 2016) for her best friend, Rayya Elias. Elias passed away a year ago from cancer. So now Gilbert is dating Elias’ best friend, a man named Simon MacArthur. My lord. She posted this message to Instagram:
Dear Ones: It’s a beautiful spring day in my corner of the world, life is everywhere bursting forth with a sense of rebirth and renewal, and this seems like as good a moment as any to tell you that I am in love. Please meet my sweetheart, Mr. Simon MacArthur. He’s a photographer from the U.K. — a beautiful man who has been a friend of mine for years. (Even more touchingly, Simon was a beloved friend of Rayya’s for decades. They lived together in London over 30 years ago, and they adored each other forever like siblings. This, as you can imagine, means the world to me.)
Of late, Simon and I have found our way to each other’s arms. And now here we are, and his heart has been such a warm place for me to land. I share this news publicly, despite the fact that our love story is so new and young and tender,for a few reasons. For one thing, I just want to say: If you see me walking around with a tall handsome man on my arm, don’t be buggin’. Just know that your girl is happy, and following her heart. But also this: I will always share anything personal about my life, if it could help someone else feel more normal about their life.
SO…if you have lost a loved one to death, and you thought you’d never love again, but you are feeling a pull of attraction toward someone new, and you’re not sure if that’s OK? Let me normalize it for you. Let me say: It’s Ok. Your heart is a giant cathedral. Let it open. Let it love. Do not let your gorgeous loyalty to the deceased stop you from experiencing the marvels and terrors of your short, mortal, precious life. It’s OK to live, and to love.
Or…if you are falling in love in middle age and it’s terrifying, because you feel just as dumb and crazy and excited and insecure as you did at 16? Well, let me normalize this for you. It’s OK. You will always feel 16 when you are falling in love. Or…if you once loved a man,and then you loved a woman, and then you loved a man, and you’re wondering if that’s ok? Well, darling. Let me normalize THAT for you. It’s OK. Love who you love. It’s all OK, and it’s all impossible to control, and it’s all an adventure that I would not miss. That’s all I wanted to say. Onward, and I love you all.
I imagine she’ll get at least two “spiritual” memoirs out of all of this. All of these spiritual journeys and this whole time, all she needed was one therapist to tell her that she’s a narcissistic drama queen who needs to be alone for two seconds before jumping into the next all-consuming love affair. There, I did it for free! I mean, I don’t judge her for finding love after her partner passed away. I do judge her for monetizing her terror at being alone and for wrapping up her mid-life crisis as a wordy spiritual journey.
Photos courtesy of Getty, Instagram.
That closing paragraph is beautiful in its take down, Kaiser. Dang.
Couldn’t agree more! I have always wondered why I was The only one that wasn’t enamored with this woman.
Right? I’m currently flummoxed by this Rachel Hollis person. Don’t get it, at all.
@Ader we must be the same person. Everybody is like you MUST read Girl, whatever corny version. I tried To get through the first chapter and was like, “Girl, have several seats”
Girl, Have Several Seats!! LOL I’m dying. The Buzzfeed takedown of the Rachel Hollis “message” was one of the more vindicating reads of 2018.
@Crowhood — Ahhhahahahahaha. Thank you! Yes!
And thanks @Millenial: Off to go find that buzzfeed article….
Me too. You are not alone.
ding ding. Elizabeth must have a giant navel, because she can’t stop gazing at it.
Kaiser nailed it. Elizabeth is a bottomless pit of need, masterbatory ego massage and messiness.
Agree! Brilliant writing! Such perfect snark! All I had was “ugh her!!!”
Agree. “I don’t judge her for finding love after her partner passed away. I do judge her for monetizing her terror at being alone and for wrapping up her mid-life crisis as a wordy spiritual journey.” is the perfect summation of everything I’ve thought about Eat Pray Love since first hearing about it.
Yup. Beautiful summation. Like good for her for finding love again but she has always struck me as a talentless narcissit who self-importance induces eye-rolling. I mean, “Dear ones…” Yeesh.
What a great post. Kaiser, don’t ever leave us.
The book got boring at a certain point and I couldn’t finish it.
I feel like there is not much to get out of the book if she jumps from one to the next. She is the Heidi Klum of the literary world!
Elizabeth, woman, you messy.
That book made me puke right at the beginning when she says that women fleeing from war and famine really just care about boys liking them.
“If you see me walking around with a tall handsome man on my arm, don’t be buggin’. Just know that your girl is happy”
Can you injure your eyes by rolling them too hard cuz I think I just did.
Much like Marie Kondo, I l love mess. And this woman is a total mess. And also a hack. I’m honestly surprised she hasn’t written a book about Rayya, but that’s probably still coming. And now she’ll have a follow-up book about finding love again.
She’s the worst.
Lmao
But really, she’s insufferable.
I’ve never read EPL or seen the movie, I didn’t find either appealing
@ hotsauce – you’re so lucky my cousin made me read it and see the movie with her, and this lady was annoying. Plus with Julia Roberts? Ugh I wanted to punch my cousin for making me do both
Victoria, you must really love your cousin. 🙂
Maybe I’m just as messy as Liz but I really love her approach to love. She literally JUMPS into life however risky or messy. She’s another one who strikes me as in love with the idea of love, rather than the realities, in an almost puppy-like way. I see a lot of myself in her restlessness.
I read “Eat Pray Love” when it first came out. I was deeply moved and it resonated for me in a variety of personal ways. It really gave me a much-needed change in perspective at that time in my life. Then all the criticism came out, all the eye-rolling, etc, and it just made me feel…stupid. Like there must be a flaw in me to have fallen for it. Like maybe I was also an “indulgent, pseudo-spiritual” person. But eventually I decided “screw it.” The perspective the book gave me is no less valuable to me now than it was then. I don’t care who wrote it, the motives, how skilled the writing was, how much was fiction or non-fiction, I just know what it meant to me at the time.
Agreed. Her bright spirit has definitely inspired me in some difficult times. She’s also no hack. I thought maybe Eat, Pray, Love was a fluke, but her novel, The Signature of All Things, is truly gorgeous. So what if she’s messy? She’s a writer–they often are and life would be boring without them.
Kareng, it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks or says. If you found meaning in the book and it helped you, that’s all that matters. No need to feel stupid. As I wrote below, I found meaning in the message and the adventure aspect of the film, just not her writing in the book. Plenty of people loved the book.
I agree @kareng. It spoke to me as well, possibly because I was in her same position: married to a perfectly “nice” guy for whom I had no passion. I wasnt good at choosing a partner for myself, but was turning 30, he asked, and I thought we’d make it work. We never really did, and I wondered if I’d have to spend my life in a state of restlessness and depression. That book was a giant “NO” to that question, and for that I will be grateful. It gave me courage to leave my husband and defy my conservative family because life is short, and while being with someone you’re passionate about is a gift, being with someone you’re not passionate about drains the color from life. I’m now with an amazing man, married 4 years and have a precious baby boy. Thank you, Elizabeth Gilbert
I agree, she is a very skillful writer and she writes some enjoyable stories. I liked her novel very much too (the signature of all things). Yup, her love life is very messy! Oh well… at least she got one
She’s also raised millions of dollars with Glennon Doyle & Rob Bell through their non-profit Together Rising. Part of the money has gone to families torn apart at the border. I don’t agree with everything she says, but this post is pretty harsh. She fell in love with her best friend as Rayya was dying of brain cancer and didn’t monetize that. Who knows what state her marriage was in at that point?
I’m also confused by putting spirituality in quotation marks and calling her work pseudo-spirituality. I have a master’s in theology. Spirit comes from the Latin spirtus meaning breath or breath of life. I think of it as the creative force that breathes life into all living things and connects us to all living beings.
Tony Robbins practices pseudo-spirituality and appropriates other cultures’ religious practices. I don’t think the same can be said for Liz, whose writing is often filled with a life-giving, creative spirit. Peace.
India Rose, I completely agree with you. Why hate this woman when there are so many more worthy of animosity. So weird.
Thank you for your thoughtful comment.
yes. those 3 make no sense to me.
I think it’s all well and good but she’s left people behind in her wake, she’s hurt people. Being messy in love is one thing but when there’s human carnage in your wake you need to reevaluate things. Self fulfillment shouldn’t come at the expense of other people’s peace and happiness, if it does it’s just dressed up narcissism.
Thank you. I don’t know as much about Gilbert as I do her friend Glennon Doyle and this is the sense I always got about Glennon’s work, especially as she got bigger.
I don’t have a problem with the fact that they are messy. The problem is that there isn’t really a moment (that I can see) where they acknowledge the human cost of said messiness. I don’t need anyone to be perfect, but there’s this odd attitude, as you say, that it doesn’t matter who you hurt along the way in a quest to be “genuine”. There’s something vaguely exploitive to me in the way people are written about kind of as props on a journey to self fulfillment. Maybe it’s just the writing style, but that’s the sense I get.
“Don’t be bugging…your girl is happy”? In the middle of all the Goopiness, that made me cringe SO hard. “Girl”, just…no. No.
I was cringing from the first sentence
“Dear Ones: It’s a beautiful spring day in my corner of the world, life is everywhere bursting forth with a sense of rebirth and renewal”
Ugh. Her writing is bad.
So bad lol.
LOL.
I live in a small town. Veeeeeery small. So small that a clique of women have a place “in town” called “The Soul Studio.” (Made up name, to protect the unintentionally guilty.)
I went once, and they’re all hopped up on Oprah, chardonnay, and self-help superstars. And they ALL spew nonsense like this! I heard the phrase “love and light” at least 2 dozen times in 2 hours.
Anyway, they all LOVE this purple-prose style. Forced positivity for all!
They all believe they’re WONDERFUL people, blessed and led by positivity…but they’re actually pathologically self-centered, ruthless gossips, who lack the self-awareness to realize they’re deeply infected with bias and prejudice. (They all LOVE Oprah, after all. lol.)
If people spend money on her books and movies, what’s the problem?
People spend money on building a wall, too…doesn’t mean we can’t mock them for it.
I don’t know, if someone saw her walking around with a tall handsome man, would someone care? Anyone? Who would even recognize her? She’s quite the self-promoter.
I didn’t immediately recognize her name, either. It’s a pretty ordinary name. I did read EPL (and liked it), but I never remembered her name. Hm, not sure I why I even started writing this.
That was my thought too – who would recognize her, and who would care? Holy self-importance, Batman.
Though I can’t say I’m surprised – I HATED Eat Pray Love. H.A.T.E.D. I couldn’t stand how self centered and oblivious she was to everyone else.
I did too! It’s literally the goopiest, whitest book ever. People get divorced ALL THE TIME. It’s sad, sure, but is it really that brave to end a relationship you’re not into WHEN YOU”VE JUST BEEN PAID TO GO ON VACATION? Like, I love my husband, but I would definitely consider leaving him if someone was going to pay me to go travel the world!
I remember liking the very first part of the book where she’s talking about her marriage and realizing she needs a life change. I found it very honest without throwing her husband under the bus (though it has been awhile since I read it…I don’t remember much after she leaves for Italy).
It’s her post EPL enlightened persona that is grating. Maybe it’s her writing style but every post I’ve read by her reads like she views other people as props in her journey, not as real people who have real feelings.
Man, social media has really provided a place for narcissists to thrive.
So true! Facebook is a narcissist’s playground.
That caption is actually embarrassing. I dislike her and Cheryl Strayed so much.
Really? I actually like Cheryl Strayed and find her much more relatable and interesting. I like her podcastDear Sugar. Wild I didn’t think was great, but I found it much better than expected.
She’s insufferable.
🙄
Exactly— she’s monetizing her messiness and we’re supposed to admire her. Hard pass.
I couldn’t get past the first few chapters I’d Eat. Pray. Love. Her writing was just so… bad. I don’t know what possessed me to see the movie. I was surprised that I liked it so much more than the book. Maybe it’s because I liked the message and the spirit of adventure but not her writing.
I’m pearl-clutchingly surprised by the intensity of the hateration on this woman. No judgment tho, everyone ain’t for everybody. Just curious why peeps find her particular human journey, and her books about it, so repugnant.
A quote from her book for you to consider:
These Cambodians had suffered the worst of what humans can inflict on each other—
genocide, rape, torture, starvation, the murder of their relatives before their eyes, then
long years in refugee camps and dangerous boat trips to the West where people died and
corpses were fed to sharks—what could Deborah offer these people in terms of help? How
could she possibly relate to their suffering?
“But don’t you know,” Deborah reported to me, “what all these people wanted to talk
about, once they could see a counselor?”
It was all: I met this guy when I was living in the refugee camp, and we fell in love. I
thought he really loved me, but then we were separated on different boats, and he took up
with my cousin. Now he’s married to her, but he says he really loves me, and he keeps calling
me, and I know I should tell him to go away, but I still love him and I can’t stop thinking about
him. And I don’t know what to do . . .
This is what we are like.
Welp. We are still people, even when we live through shit, I don’t find it disrespectful of her to say that. It mirrors my experience of growing up in the Balkans during the 90s war as well as bonding with others who were children at the time. We bonded over everything from telenovelas our mothers used to watch, Italian comics, old 80s anime we watched on repeat and we had crushes like all other kids. We also have memories of trauma too, not talking about them does not diminish them. It was bad enough living through it why talk about it too? Let people live.
I found this actually to be true to life as well, in working with refugees asylees. Not that everyone wants to talk about boy drama/girl drama, but that people DO want to talk about the minutiae of life.
Seriously. I mean, I get that not everybody likes her writing style, but the woman had a pretty substantial career before writing that book. She worked as a journalist for years before making it big, and all of her earlier novels have been well-received and most were nominated for writing awards. Let’s not play down her accomplishments because we may not like her personal life – which, she has always been open about her tendency to flip from one romance to the next. At least unlike a ;pt of people who flit from relationship to relationship, she was responsible enough not to drag children through it.
Her ex girlfriend passed a year ago right? I personally don’t consider that hopping from or relationship to the next. And her description of refugees-i would think going through what they’ve endured romance may seem like a nice escape and that was what she meant to point out that we all have that in common when feeling her life is in no way similar to a refugee. Again maybe poorly written by her but I wonder if that’s what she meant
She keeps landing on the next closest person in her social circle and falling madly in love. What a crazy coincidence!
Someone needs to feed all of this chick’s and Lena Dunham’s essays into an ANN and see what nonsense it spits out. Can’t be any worse than the real thing.
Genius!!! 🙂
I’m so glad to hear that I’m not the only one who found her absolutely insufferable. I did read the book and wanted to throw it across the room about a dozen times. Get over your freaking self – does the sun know the world revolves around you, Elizabeth?
But she did a really great profile of Tom Waits in a magazine like 15 years ago so I can’t hate on her.
The last paragraph is correct 100%. You just nailed it.
Liz Gilbert wrote a book about Eustace Conaway called The Last American Man, which I really enjoyed. I think because I found Eustace such an interesting subject.
EPL, had a start in which she describes crying/sobbing/rocking back and forth in a locked bathroom while thinking “I don’t want to be married” over and over again. 16 years later I still recall this vividly because I also lived this reality, for close to a year. A terrible time in my life, trapped in an awful marriage with an infant child.
I found the rest of EPL to be unrelatable in every way. Her life, her choices, her wealth are all beyond any reality I will ever know.
And yes, she has options most of us will never have. Face it, wealthy people can do as they want, live messy personal lives and then throw money at the situation and walk away. Lots of less wealthy also do this.
And, this entire “goddess, the secret, be positive and the universe will bless you, etc.” is way outta control, IMO. If I never see “Live, Laugh, Love” , “Family”, “Blessed” wall signs again I’d be thrilled! The entire Oprah fixation/Goop etc. makes me sick. Ugh.
Sorry, hit a nerve.
Gilbert didn’t grow up ultra-wealthy and did spend some of her early working years in service work like waitressing and bartending. Her immense success came much later after she’d established herself as a journalist. She doesn’t have children is the big thing, IMO. You’ll enjoy a greater degree of freedom throughout your life if you never have children. I’m not fond of all her work, but I’ve always given her credit for being honest about her messiness.
The Last American Man really is a great book one of my favorites and maybe her last good book. The rest are books written about her and they have suffered for it.
The lady is a messy in a way I love to watch from afar. She’s the quintessential Cancer.
I tried to like her because my best friend loved her book EPL so much. But I can’t. I just can’t.
Lizzy dear … you have a few screws loose. I love that assessmen re monetizing fear. As much as I respect Ophra, I often thought she dragged her audiences along as she looked for her magic cure and Gilbert seems to have taken that and inhected a pound of narcissism into it for a very messy “spiritual quest”
I feel bad for her because she does not seem content in the least.
I agree she can seem self indulgent but I needed to hear this:
‘Or…if you are falling in love in middle age and it’s terrifying, because you feel just as dumb and crazy and excited and insecure as you did at 16? Well, let me normalize this for you. It’s OK. You will always feel 16 when you are falling in love’
Messy for sure, but I always liked her book Stern Men.
Her best one was The Last American man. Excellent book really even though I’m not a fan of her.
I wish you had a “Like” button because this post deserves it! I never liked her or her book – well, the thought of it, since I didn’t actually reading it after hearing the gist of it – and you have put it succinctly and perfectly, as to why that is.
Love her, love her approach to life. Love that she’s totally honest about her feelings and experiences. I was heart-broken for her when Rayya passed, and wondered how I would ever deal with similar pain in my life. I’m inspired by her ability to continue to embrace life despite its pain and challenges. It gives me hope and excitement for my own future. She makes me feel like everything will work out in the end. As for the serial monogamy, she strikes me as someone who says ‘yes’ to so many experiences in life, who really connects with the people she meets. She’s an artist, after all. She may just naturally fall in love with people a little bit more than the average bear, which would explain why she is always in a very intense relationship. I hope this one lasts, but even if it doesn’t, it’s all part of her life journey and she seems to be living a great one. xo
I agree she’s navel-gazing but not as “harmful’ as she might come across. Eat Pray Love was sort of that awful global-north-person-discovers-herself-with-the-humble-wholesome-wise-citizens-of-the-global-south milieu but I think she and her editors really wanted a big hit. Her previous books were acclaimed but hardly flying off the shelves. As a person I’d imagine she’d be one of those fantastic, warm neighbours, really genuine and heartfelt, and bringing you hot pies and bake goods all the time. Horrible writer though.
I rolled my eyes throughout reading Eat, Pray, Love. Her entire “single sabbatical” was funded by the advance her publisher gave her to write a book about her experience. She didn’t just go on a whim, she planned to write a book about it from the get go and that point she was pretty well established in her career. So basically middle class white lady gets paid to go on a journey to “find herself.” The height of narcissism. While I’m glad some people were inspired by her such as ending a loveless marriage and going on to new things, I did not find the book remotely inspirational. To me it was self-indulgent and narcissistic.
I do wonder about her decision to be with Rayya following her terminal cancer diagnosis. Without it, I don’t think Elizabeth would have left her second husband to be with Rayya (she might have left him eventually of course), knowing from the get go the relationship would be short lived. A horrible part of me thinks “She probably did it so she could write a book about it later and milk it for all it’s worth, being with someone who is terminally ill.” I know that’s awful but I can’t help it, given that she has written a book about every single relationship she’s been in.
And now she’s dating a guy who was Rayya’s BFF for 30 years. She’s so, so messy.
Also most of her Facebook drip with excessive flowery prose (apparently this is called purple prose! love it) and she ALWAYS starts them off with “Dear Ones” and it makes me want to gag. These saccharine posts of her are always so over the top.
I’ve actually wondered if she might be bi-polar… her description of herself sobbing on the bathroom floor then her meditating and thinking she was God, both in EPL… just made me wonder. She seems well intentioned but unstable…tho maybe calmer now w age…
She is just an awful person believing she is a good one really.
I think the only thing she’s terrified of is being forgotten.
Couldn’t read beyond the gag inducing “Dear Ones” salutation.
I am not ashamed to admit that I loved Eat, Pray, Love (EPL) and related to much of her emotional journey. I had high hopes for her, that she’d figured out life and love, and even read her next book Committed. I grabbed it from my shelf and threw it out the minute I heard she’d left her husband for her best friend. Now I’m ready to throw out EPL with this latest announcement. This woman should not be writing anymore books, she’s a total train wreck and as lost now as she was before she wrote her first book. How disappointing!
Love this post so much, Gilbert is selfish person who wrote a book on how to be selfish and she then proceeds to gloat in her selfish behavior and wants others to follow her. Her first husband should thank his lucky stars she left him, she seems to be a relationship vampire.
This woman is a nightmare of self-indulgence.