I’m a little baffled that this story is getting so much traction, but we all binge watched Tiger King so nothing makes sense anymore. In our weekly Celebitchy Zoom meeting yesterday (email me at info-at-celebitchy if you’d like to join, we meet Wednesdays at 4 EST!), the point was made that Kristin Cavallari is surely capitalizing on how bored we are and how little real gossip is happening. Otherwise this story about a demanding reality star predictably divorcing her former NFL player husband would be a minor one. Also someone on that call, I’m not going to name names, called Jay Cutler a “chinless guy with no personality.” Most of us agreed and I definitely see it now. He’s attractive in the forgettable generic way that Kristin is so they’re perfect for each other.
E!, which runs Kristin’s show, has exclusive details from her divorce filing. I’m sure she gave them the more dramatic passages. Some of this contradicts the sourced stories fed to E!, People and US, which claimed that Kristin was “blindsided” by Jay’s divorce filing and that they were working on their marriage. In fact she was working to buy another house and they were splitting time with the kids. They’d been talking about divorce since at least the fall, and Kristin was only surprised that Jay cut off her access to the money.
According to the filing, Kristin began to look for a new residence in the fall of 2019 as things were “so bad” in their marriage. At the time, she found a house she liked and initiated the home-buying process, which Jay “never objected” to.
However, she stopped the process when she and her husband attempted to salvage their marriage. After some time though, according to the documents, they “realized the attempt to reconcile was not working and knew a divorce was inevitable.”
In early March, the two began to speak about their divorce and plan how they would go about it, including their custody and living arrangements. With these discussions in mind, Kristin once again resumed the home-buying process upon their return from the Bahamas and assumed Jay would be okay with this because of his “lack of objection in November.”
However, Jay later informed her, “his attorney was going to tell their business manager to not release the funds,” something Kristin believes he did as a way of “punishing” her. Kristin’s attorney alleges, “This is typical of Husband’s behavior towards Wife.”
Furthermore, she alleges he “attempted to intimidate” Kristin into agreeing to a proposed parenting plan that is “unfavorable to her” by preventing the purchase. In addition, she claims, “He also informed that he was not going to be leaving the marital residence.”
Prior to learning of his request for a divorce, she and Jay were each spending three days on and three days off with their three children, as sources previously told E!
But as the documents outline, “Wife does not believe that it is in the best interest of either party or their minor children to reside in the same household… Wife fears that if the parties are required to remain in the same residence, it would be an unhealthy environment, causing irreparable harm to their minor children.”
“Husband makes inappropriate statements to and about Wife and attempts to draw her into an argument in front of their minor children. Now that Husband has announced he will not leave so Wife can exercise parenting time with the children, Wife fears the situation will escalate,” it is further alleged.
In conclusion, Kristin requests the judge allows her to use “her portion of their funds” to purchase the new home.
ET Online has more details from Kristin’s filing, which is apparently public. They also clarify the living situation:
The former couple are not living together at their home in Tennessee, despite reports to the contrary, ET has exclusively learned. Cavallari and Cutler still share the home, but each lives there three days on and three days off. When not in the main house, Cutler stays at their second house, while Cavallari stays with a friend.
According to court documents obtained by ET on Wednesday, Cavallari and Cutler had reached an agreement to to exercise their parenting time week on/week off, starting May 1.
It gets even more complicated, because Kristin wants to move back to LA and Jay wants to stay in Nashville. There’s also a temporary restraining order filed which “prevents Cutler and Cavallari from disposing or concealing marital property, harassing each other and relocating the children,” but ET says this is standard in Tennessee, which is a fault state.
It’s hard to understand the money situation, but it sounds like Jay told the business manager to make sure that Kristin couldn’t buy another house with her money, right? Also, if all this is true, it reminds me so much of Bethenny Frankel’s divorce. Remember how her ex husband, Jason Hoppy, refused to move out? They lived in New York City though, this is happening in Nashville where it’s much easier to find another house. I have similar thoughts about Kristin and Jay as I did about Bethenny and Jason. Just because the woman is an a-hole, it doesn’t mean the man isn’t being emotionally abusive and/or manipulative. I don’t have enough insight into these people to make that judgment, but I did waste nearly three minutes owatching them have a fight over dinner with friends and family. That aired about a year ago on their reality show. Jay was quite drunk (he has a terrible neckbeard, but he probably needs it) and tried to fight with Kristin over money. He seemed resentful over the fact that she was the one making money. In another clip I found, Kristin admitted that they’ve always had ups and downs and have to work at their relationship. Also, remember that Jay may have cheated Kristin with her best friend last year and that they called off their engagement in 2011.
so much for being blindsided. if he lived with them, stevie wonder would have seen that thing coming.
it’s so messy. apparently she wanted to buy a house knowing that the marriage was coming to an end, and it sounds like Jake’s lawyers told him don’t make that happen. so he never released the cash and now everyone is bitter. just goes to show how you never know what things are really like, especially when the PR release indicates its amicable.
I’ve been watching the show. They both have a weird, immature dynamic – like two 18 year olds who aren’t comfortable showing emotion and who direct dumb insults at each other as a way of interacting. They did start dating young, so maybe they just got stuck in that dynamic.
Kristin doesn’t seem like the type who would have wanted kids at a young age. Its widely thought that when their engagement ended, Kristin deliberately got pregnant to keep the relationship – that she was panicking about money when Jay broke things off.
whenever people say they have to really work on their marriage, I cringe. you have to put effort into your marriage, yes. you have to make sure you’re paying attention to your partner’s needs, spending time with just them, trying to do special things with them. but it shouldn’t feel like work? I’ve been with my husband for almost a decade and I would not classify our relationship as work. it always seems to be the ones that say a marriage is work that don’t end up working out.
Ben Affleck said his marriage to Jennifer Garner was work and look how that ended!
See I just find your comment super judgemental and ignorant to boot.
Couples come in all different shapes and sizes. In my case, my husband and I have been together ten years but I have two children from a previous marriage and we also have our own child.
Blended families are hilarious, complex, funny, stressful, guilt-ridden, weird, surreal and awesome.
Is it easy? No. Is it beautiful? Yes. Is it perfectly imperfect? Yes. Does it require a LOT of work to keep the whole ship afloat? YES.
You have no clue what sort of emotional load people are juggling.
lmao I’m a stepmom to three kids with two different moms, as my husband has been divorced twice. I’m fully aware of the challenges of a blended family, thanks. my marriage itself is not work, and yes, I side eye people who say their relationship with their spouse is a lot of work. 🤷♀️ that’s not to say there aren’t challenges or that everything is perfect. and that’s not taking about the general work of running a household or managing a family – I’m only talking about the romantic relationship. sorry you took such personal offense, but maybe before you start lecturing people on the internet you should realize you don’t actually know their situation – like you said, you have no idea about people’s emotional load.
Thank you for this comment, Watercress.
Relatively early on in my marriage, a co-worker told me that she always knew a marriage was doomed when someone said they had to work at it, and that for she and her husband it was just effortless, and it always had been. A year or so later she discovered her perfect, no-work soulmate had a girlfriend that had just given birth to his child and that they’d been together, off and on, for almost the entirety of their marriage.
So, yeah, smug doesn’t always turn out to be the best look. If I’ve learned one thing in 20 years of marriage, it’s that no one—NO ONE—really knows how a marriage works, or doesn’t, except the two people who are in it.
I’m not married, so this is all assumption, but I think sometimes it can be work, and it can be necessary. There’s a lot that can happen to people – illness, trauma, addiction, betrayal, and things can get really bad, and I can imagine it really is work to repair it. But both have to decide if it’s worth doing so, and if there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. If it’s nothing but work, and there’s no end in sight, then it’s probably best to part ways. But sometimes you work through it and things get better.
You have it right, in my opinion. Been married for a decade and there are absolutely times when my marriage is work. We have been through very rough patches and worked through them.
But it’s not constant work. There is always light at the end for us. If we always had to work at our marriage, i would be exhausted and done.
I really don’t know what’s going on in their marriage, but since this is a gossip site – I suspect that Jay hasn’t agreed to her demands for at least halfway sane reasons. I think he’s a giant douche.
But just based on everything that has been made public – it sounds like it’s very possible that he refused to release the funds because the house she wanted was out of state and he didn’t want her fleeing with the kids. It genuinely sounds like – even based on what her team is releasing – is that he’s not just going to roll over and lose the kids. She wanted to move out of state. She wanted him out of the house. He’s playing this very smart by not allowing himself to lose time with the kids.
There’s also been discussion on who is the primary caregiver – both camps make it sound like they are. I suspect they might have been doing an okay job of sharing duties – which really, should result in joint custody. But to me – and I could be off base here – it sounds like Kristin wants sole custody largely in order to leave the state with the kids. Maybe he didn’t object to her getting her own place – maybe he objected to that specific house and the move that would need to happen.
This is just another good reason to not just have kids because you feel like that’s what people do. Don’t have kids with people who don’t pull their weight. Don’t have kids with someone you’d never want to go through a custody battle with. The world would be a hell of a lot better place if people didn’t just bring kids into the world because they can.
But even if- big if, Kristin got sole custody of the kids, that still doesn’t mean she can leave the state with the kids. She’d still need his permission (or the courts alternatively, and she’d need a damn good argument for that to happen), to leave the state with the kids and live elsewhere permanently.
There’s a difference between physical custody and legal custody, so even if she wanted sole (physical) custody for the reasons you stated. Jay stilll has legal custody, so it’s just as much his decision where the children live whatever (physical) custody regime either party requested in the filing, or ends up with when it’s all said and done. Unless things work very differently where they live. All that to say, I don’t know who these people are, so I’m clueless on their dynamic and behaviour, one of them could suck, or they both suck equally, or this is your typical ugly divorce posturing.
I don’t know what the differences between each state would be in terms of being able to leave with the kids (I’m Canadian) but wouldn’t the court look at it more favorably if he had already agreed to let her go buy a house in LA with their joint finances? I feel like that could be used against him as him because he would have essentially given his blessing for the purchase knowing that she’d want to live there.
I think at the end of the day, they’re both douchebags in different ways. But when I’m seeing a lot that seems to come directly from her team where she STILL doesn’t look great- I do start to question her motives here. At the end of the day it’s down to the kids having the right to have access to both parents assuming one is not going to be detrimental to their well-being. And it seems like she’s ready to use the kids to manipulate the situation as needed. There’s just so much weird protest from her team that makes it all very strange. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s worried something will come out about her that could damage the brand she’s built for herself. Again – I really don’t know the inner workings of their marriage, this is all speculation. I don’t doubt that he’s not some perfect shining example of a husband either.
i agree with everything erinn said, but wanted to add that jay has been the primary caregiver in the last few years (once his football career ended). kristin was building her new business and traveling a lot for work. it is very clearly documented on the three seasons of their reality show… which is all about kristin building a brand and jay being the retired nfl player househusband. so, 50/50 certainly seems fair.
while being a very dry and lackluster person, i mean it’s tv, and it came off as authentic as tv can be, but i don’t remember seeing jay or kristin being abusive to each other (furthest they’d go are jokes/ribbing each other), but they definitely had a disconnect
and as a poster downstream mentioned, they have a whole second empty home in nashville that either one of them could stay at, so this points to the purchase of a home moreso being in l.a. perhaps the purchase was brought up for her as a pied-à-terre while working in l.a., but it might have been her escape hatch.
to add to what you said about him not wanting to lose the kids…
…isn’t it easier for one parent to get (primary/legal/sole/whatever) custody while claiming “abandonment” if the other parent leaves the marital residence? that could also be why neither of them want to “move out” but are willing to vacate for a few days.
That’s what I was thinking. I think he’s just doing everything he can to make sure that he won’t screw himself out of joint custody or to show that he’s not a primary caregiver at this point.
I think it’s really making her angry that he won’t just let it go because I mean – look how many guys just don’t care enough about being in their kid’s lives. She probably has plenty of friends who have been able to get whatever they wanted out of a custody battle/ divorce settlement because the husbands just didn’t care and had never been much of a caregiver to their own kids. But from what i can tell, he IS present in their lives, and doesn’t want to give her a reason to tell the kids or the courts that daddy abandoned them.
The courts always side with whatever is most consistent for the kids, and I’m pretty sure they’ve been living full time in Nashville. So hypothetically, if she wanted to take them to LA, she’s SOL. If they had been splitting time between LA and Nashville and they had a home in LA, she might have a shot. Otherwise, those kids are staying put.
I’m so happy to have some gossip that doesn’t involve anyone in the Royal Family. I don’t even care that it’s about a minor reality tv star
Same!!! I skip those now.
I skip them, too. It doesn’t leave much!
I’m with you! I truly do not understand we we’re still having a constant flow of 2 or more posts a day about the Sussex! I don’t care who’s to blame for Sussexit and whatnot: it’s JUST NOT interesting!
Preaching to my choir on that! I skip all Royal family posts. It’s so circular, repetitive, and boring and constant. I have no interest in anyone in that family, so I skip over all those posts. Some days there’s not much left over.
Yep, boredom makes the most uninteresting people more interesting. In regular times, I probably wouldn’t have paid this story much, if any, attention. But I read all these posts now. And previously, I was one of those people who knew he was some kind of sportsperson and she was some type of reality person (I refuse to say ‘reality star’) and that’s about it.
100%
The husband had his lawyer”their business manager to not release the funds” so she couldn’t buy another house?????
Ladies never share a primary bank account with your partner. Separate banking so you have control over your own money.
This is why so many people get trapped in abusive relationships.
IIRC, she said on her show she thinks it’s important for women to have separate bank accounts and separate money. She talked about not needing his money. I’m guessing they’ve got joint accounts and separate accounts, and she wants to use the joint money rather than her separate money. He’s going to have to buy her out of their current residence if he’s insisting on keeping it.
It’s presumptive to assume that this is abusive. Let’s be careful about this narrative. He could be trying to protect himself and access to the kids. This statement is clearly her camp and her spin. Like I said in comments yesterday, women can be just as a abusive and nasty when it comes to divorce and using the kids as pawns.
Agree. If he’s been abusive, she would’ve said he was. Notice the very careful way they crafted the statement to insinuate for PR purposes that he is abusive. That’s actually a really shitty move.
It’s presumptive to assume that this is abusive. Let’s be careful about this narrative. He could be trying to protect himself and access to the kids. This statement is clearly her camp and her spin. Like I said in comments yesterday, women can be just as a abusive and nasty when it comes to divorce and using the kids as pawns.
This also sounds like they have a joint account, my mother always said they were the devil. Otherwise how could he have stopped her purchasing a separate residence.
I would think they’d have a joint account for the household and kids, but separate beyond that. If she’s so successful, she should have the money to use her separate accounts, or get a loan.
So the kids are staying in the family home and the parents rotate in. It appears that he has been the primary carer, taking the kids to school etc, but he is asking for shared custody. She wants primary custody and apparently wants to take the kids out of the state. How is he being abusive by applying the brakes until this is sorted out in court? Unless it is a state that is very pro mother I suspect that they will side with him: the kids stay in their home, in their schools and are raised by both parents. If he moves out or the kids are moved to another home it could be used to present him as less involved with the kids and increase her chances of taking the kids away. Men have a right to fight for their kids too, it doesn’t make them abusers.
I don’t think it’s actually been established she wants to take them out of state. That’s just what some people are speculating.
There’s some BS to the thing about her wanting to buy another home. They already own 2 houses in Nashville. One of them has been on the market for a long time, and as if February 2020 was still for sale. Couldn’t one of them move there?
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.realtor.com/news/celebrity-real-estate/why-havent-jay-cutler-and-kristin-cavallari-been-able-to-sell-nashville-mansion.amp/
Oh wow, I see why it’s not selling – it’s an ugly house! But yeah, if you own 2 and want to live separately…problem solved.
On a side note, why does she always do that weird pose with her legs in every photo?
Yeah, I think the issue isn’t just he doesn’t want to “give” her money to buy a home, but he doesn’t want her buying a home in L.A. He wants to keep the kids in Nashville. You can’t take the kids and move them to the other side of the country without a fight. This couple bores me, but this is getting messy, so I’m paying attention.
Their split is the most interesting thing about them.
Divorce is messy. If KC wants to move to another state, that’s a big deal-most parents would not just green light that without hesitation.
And as much as I enjoy KC as a drama queen, both parents need to be off of personal social media immediately, and be circumspect in their professional accounts. Why? Because they’re parents. One of the hard truths of divorce is that you have to behave better than you want to, especially when there are kids involved.
I don’t think he’s ever done social media. She ran an Instagram account for him called “IfJayHadanInstagram” but he never posted himself. He’s not on twitter either, not sure about Facebook.
My guess is they have personal accounts for various ventures AND joint funds, that’s what husband and I have anyway. Sounds like she planned to use joint funds which would decrease the amount of joint assets to split and there is no mention of the price tag on the home she was planning to purchase, one would assume it’s a few million $$ coming from the joint account. It isn’t abusive to halt that action, it’s business.
This, all day. I’m not getting why people think this is bad. If they have $10 million in a joint account and she wants to spend $5 million on a house before their divorce is finalized, he ends up with $2.5 million and she ends up with $7.5 million. If he halts it and they split it down the middle, they both end up with $5 million.
She would have to split the value of the home but that is more difficult than splitting cash. So i don’t blame him.
I don’t understand why she’d need to buy a house if he was moving out?
And I’m sure he’s a doucher but if they have a parenting schedule now that’s equal time, then why on earth should he agree to anything that would greatly reduce his parenting time?
I think their first Nashville home that has been for sale is too big and isolated and she doesn’t want to live there anymore, and the house they currently live in is something like a 45 minute drive from her UJ store. (This was part of the plot when they filmed the move). So maybe she was trying to buy in one of the cute, more in-town neighborhoods of Nashville to be closer to the store and the action? If you check out the aerial pic of that first home (on Bancroft) on realtor.com you can see how it’s situated. I wouldn’t want to live there on my own.
Is that type of 3 days on 3 days off beneficial to the children? Someone I knew with twins close to my son’s age were doing 5 days on 5 days off. My ex and I are doing the traditional every other weekend, time in the summer, one school break and some holidays. Based on his non-existent relationship with his daughter, I truly think this will be the best way for us, should he ever drop out of the picture.
Anyhoo, I’ve never much liked Kristin but I hope she is able to get out and get settled and do whatever it is that she wants to do.
So she wanted to use joint funds to buy a house in the middle of a separation, correct? How is it bad that he stopped it?
They need to figure out how to split the joint funds before she makes any large purchases. If he wants to keep the current home, he can buy her out and she can use that money to buy a new one.
Him stopping her from spending millions from their joint account is just divorce 101, not abusive or controlling, IMO.
This. Listen, I can only go off my own experience here watching my ex navigate similar waters with his divorce. Sometimes, not all, women get super angry when I guy doesn’t just fold and and hand over money and relinquish access to their own kids. Jay could be trying to protect his standing with his own children and she’s likely pissed about it.
+1 Kebbie
I thought they would last forever, said nobody.
She’s someone everyone can love to hate and she is begging for media attention so there’s no feeling that speculating about the case is an invasion of privacy. I think it is just good gossip, especially since her PR spin makes zero sense. Constantly contradicts itself. They’re just throwing it on the wall and seeing if anything sticks. As a lawyer pointed out, there was no point to filing divorce papers at all, legally. Jay filing for divorce would have sufficed. She just filed -tit for tat. As far as gossip, I’d love to know if her house shopping was in the neighborhood where her husband and kids live. Is she saying that she doesn’t have enough money to rent an apartment? Renting an inexpensive place near the family home is what most people do if they can afford a second household while separated before asset division is ironed out. I wouldn’t give a bunch of cash to someone threatening to take custody away from me in a divorce. Demanding money for a major purchase seems like extortion.
I think (gtanted, I have no education in law) that it might be relevant that she said in her filing that Jay has not *always* been the primary at home caregiver. She might be grasping for a time at the beginning of the marriage, that she was home more than he was. From the show, he was absolutely the primary at-home parent. She’d have to claim that that was an entirely made up story for years and years and that they’re both good actors.
They both look so miserable. If you cover their terse half smiles and just look at their eyes…yikes. But, has Kristin ever come across as genuinely happy? She strikes me as a person that could really use some soul searching.
The more she talks, the worse she looks. TMZ got ahold of Jay’s response and he called her wanting to buy another house “frivolous”.
She responded that she doesn’t like staying in the 2nd giant house in Nashville because it “doesn’t have internet”. She actually said that. 🙄
Apparently she signed a contract on Monday for a 5 million dollar home in Franklin. I’m guessing she got angry when she got a call about being removed from the joint account she referenced.
On the show, Kristin bragged on camera about having her own bank account with her own money that was separate from “their account”. Jay pointed out that the joint account was the money he earned and she said was “ours” while the money she earned was “hers”.
She said it was important for a woman to be financially independent. Guess not?
Kristin also bragged on the show that they don’t have a pre-nup. Jay, you big dumb animal.
It seems like she wants to use his NFL money to buy ANOTHER house and he is protecting his assets. To me, Jay is winning the PR aspect without even trying.
THEY DON’T HAVE A PRENUP??!
ETA: Okay I googled and according to The Blast, Jay wants their prenup enforced, so they did have one.
https://theblast.com/c/kristin-cavallari-jay-cutler-divorce-joked-about-prenup-reality-show-very-cavallari
I hope that’s true! I watched the show and she said there was no prenup in one of those little interviews with Kelly.
I live in Nashville so watched it at first out of curiosity and then stayed because Jay was funny. He has definitely been the primary caregiver the past few years. She jokes about it on the show. I feel like that show is providing him receipts if she tries to say it’s her.
BTW-the house “without internet” is not rural. It’s minutes from downtown in a very swanky area.
She took care of the kids while he was working and making millions and then he retired and she started working and traveling. The man deserves joint custody. She is NOT taking this well.
I always thought she was pretty (but with the ugliest soul/heart/insides whatever which makes her inherently less beautiful) but golly gosh she needs a touch more weight on her. It’s as though after 3 kids she is trying far too hard to be ultra slim and it has left her a little gaunt in the face. But it’s her body and her decision, I suppose!
I have a vision of Kristen stomping her foot repeatedly and screaming like a spoiled child. lol